


Ghosts of a Future Lost

by 64907



Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF
Genre: Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, Apocalypse, Community: ninoexchange, Drift Compatibility, Giant Robots, Jaeger Academy, Jaeger Pilots, Kaiju, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sexual Content, Survivor Guilt, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:16:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/64907/pseuds/64907
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are different kinds of monsters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [natsunonamae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsunonamae/gifts).



> Originally written for ninoexchange. This is a semi-Pacific Rim AU. Title is taken from one track in Requiem for a Dream's OST. This story is also available on [Livejournal](http://64907.livejournal.com/15762.html).

There are different kinds of monsters.

There are those you grow up thinking they're lurking under your bed, only coming out when you're properly asleep. There are those which come out of nowhere, those you see in other people in the absence of humanity, and there are some who live inside you. These, Nino understands.

Then they came from the sky.

Nino doesn't remember how. All he remembers was being shuffled to the nearest evacuation center and taking the longest ride at the back of a truck, one that took him away as far from the capital as possible. He didn't ask many questions at that time because nobody had any answers.

He was out of Tokyo when first wave broke out, and in a matter of hours, Tokyo was declared lost. When the truck driver turned on the radio for any piece of news, all they got was how Tokyo now lay in a state of debris and ruin, and whatever destroyed the capital was still rampaging there, the national air force not standing a chance.

"They came from the sky," the stuttering voice of the radio announcer said. They lost her voice in deafening static when they got too far, and it was then Nino realized that Tokyo Tower was now a remnant of the past. It probably sat as a pile of rubble, now indistinguishable as a former icon of Japan.

They didn't get very far when they began hearing the monstrous roars followed by the crushing thumps that rattled the very ground, and when Nino bravely lifted the flap covering the truck to see, he thought that Tanaka Tomoyuki's famous creation had come to life, except this one had luminescent skin and equally luminescent eyes. It had plenty; Nino couldn't remember how many eyes he saw on the thing, but each looked like it had the blood of the gods inside them, like nothing could stop it and nothing could win against it.

It looked like the embodiment of the wrath of god reaping the realm of mankind in god's stead, and Nino had to turn away and pull the flap down when a child's mother begged him to not look outside anymore. They didn't ask what he saw despite the howling continuously sounding like booming thunder and as constant as the flashes of lightning in a fierce storm, and even if they did ask what it was, Nino knew he wouldn't have the heart nor the ability to tell them.

It was something out of this world, something he had only seen in the numerous games he played and mangas he read, something that shouldn't be possible at all. It was the beginning of the end, and as the truck sped away, carrying the hopes of almost thirty people that they would remain unnoticed till they reached their yet unknown destination, Nino knew this was the beginning of mankind’s last stand.

\--

Monsters, they called them. When Nino arrived in the evacuation facility, somewhere in an abandoned tower in Shimane, that was what they were called. He had to walk past a couple of people claiming they saw the monster with their very own eyes and that Tokyo wasn’t the only city which experienced an attack. He had to listen to continuous whispers that the entire globe was experiencing similar panic, that this was something the leaders of the world never prepared themselves for.

When he had to register his name, he found her then. He was wondering if she got away from Tokyo safely, but there had been no time to check and no way to know. The phone lines didn’t work, the power system in Tokyo was no longer functional, and he had to cling to nothing but hope that she made it out once the emergency evacuation procedures began.

“What were those things?” Riisa asked him then, and Nino couldn’t tell his sister anything. He was older than her by three minutes and she looked up to him for answers ever since, even when he started telling her white lies just for the fun of seeing her devastated face once she found out the truth.

Nino could see his face looking back at him in combined wonder and fear, only that her features were softer than his and that made her alarm and worry more evident than his own. Still, it felt as if he was looking at the mirror that showed what he was trying his best to hide, and he had to look away as he signed his name and offered his wrist for a number tag.

589\. There were less than a thousand people in this facility, and his limbs suddenly felt heavier at the thought of his countrymen not making it out. How many people died due to the sudden attack, with the last thing they probably saw being the monstrous appearance of the alien lifeform?

“Come with me,” his sister told him then, pulling him by the elbow. He allowed himself to be led to a spiral staircase, using one hand to cling to the railing and his ears to follow her footsteps. He felt sick, weary, and terrified all at the same time, and he wondered if his twin could feel it too.

Riisa led him to a room having two beds, and it was then she showed him the number on her wrist. 588. “I told them I have a brother and that he would come, and that once he does, they should list him after me. They listened,” she explained. Nino could only sit down on one of the beds, shutting his eyes. He could still see the many eyes of the creature from hours ago, the shining orbs that looked like ichor except they were neon blue, almost cyan. He believed one eye was about the size of one grown man, and he trembled.

“Here,” he heard Riisa say, and he opened his eyes to accept a glass of water from her hand. She was trembling too, and yet she was also taking care of him despite not having seen him for years. Nino took the glass gratefully and drank, his eyes on his sister’s. Of all the ways he thought he would meet her again, having a gigantic alien lifeform devastating Tokyo was not something he imagined. He almost laughed, except he had no strength to. It literally took the world ending for them to meet again and talk like this, after he deliberately stayed away to pursue his dreams of becoming an accomplished musician despite their mother’s refusal.

Riisa tried to stay in touch with him when their mother died, but he kept his distance. When she got married, Nino didn’t come to the wedding either. Nino could only assume that her husband didn’t make it out of Tokyo, if she opted to wait for him instead despite not seeing his face for so many years.

To look at her now and see that she was acting like nothing had happened, Nino didn’t know what to feel. He was thankful she made it out, but he hadn’t exactly prepared for the situation where he would be looking at her eyes that were full of nothing but questions for him. He hurt her and he knew it, but was there time to talk about it when the world was ending with every second that passed by?

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, startling himself and his sister. It was the only thing he could say that would somehow encompass everything. She looked stricken for a moment, her eyes wild and disbelieving, almost angry, and for a moment Nino thought he’d rather look at the creature’s multiple eyes from earlier than meet hers.

Then she sighed, waving a hand. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she told him. Outside, they could hear people shuffling and climbing the stairs, as well as the voice of someone in the speakers, cracking but still audible. It mentioned that all the government knew about the attack would be relayed very soon, and that countermeasures were being put in motion. Nino wondered what they meant by that.

“You’re here now,” Riisa said, offering a hand to him in truce, something they often did when they were children and he made her cry by telling the truth about the existence of rainbows and the pot of gold at the end of it. He took her hand into his, meeting her eyes. “Whatever this is, whatever’s happening right now, we have each other.”

Somehow, Nino believed her.

\--

When the world leaders had convened and approved the Jaeger program, Riisa signed up for it despite Nino’s insistence that they remain where they were. Shimane was far enough from Tokyo, and so far, the trained soldiers in the gigantic robot mechas were able to keep the monsters at bay. Kaiju, the world referred to them, intruders from the sky which knew nothing but destruction and devastation, otherworldly beings which sought nothing but mankind’s annihilation.

“I have to do this,” Riisa said, and Nino saw himself in her eyes, with the way her determination stared back at him. He felt like he was looking at his seventeen year-old self, the one that declared that he had to follow his passion and he couldn’t do it Katsushika. It sent a wave of deja vu in him, and Nino knew he couldn’t stop her anymore.

“Our people are fighting and we can’t just sit here and wait till the fight gets to us. What then? We have to make a stand. We can’t just remain here and do nothing when our own people are fighting for us,” Riisa told him as she laced her boots.

Nino knew there was no stopping her, but he had to try. “Their job is to fight. They were trained for that. You weren’t. I wasn’t. You were an accountant and I spent my days strumming guitars in clubs that would have me. Those people out there? Those people you claim that are fighting for us? Their job is to fight for us. You and I have no place in the war.”

Riisa looked at him with combined determination and disappointment, and Nino thought he’d be fine with her feeling that way as long as she listened to him and stayed where it was safe. “This is our fight,” his sister said, voice hard. “This is our war. Our place is to stand with everyone who’s taking a stand, along with the rest of the world. The program is effective; we are fighting back after months and months of cowering and staying low, hoping the kaiju won’t notice us. We were living like insects, waiting to be crushed for good until this program came and gave us hope. And you want to stop me from helping out? From signing up to train among our people, to learn how to fight? Because I was an accountant?!”

Nino shut his eyes. There was no stopping her. “I am not stopping you because you were an accountant,” he said through his teeth, “I’m stopping you because you are going to die.”

Something shifted in her expression then, and Nino’s shoulders slumped in defeat. After years of being separated, he didn’t want to lose her anymore. She was the only family he had left. Nino knew her, so he knew she would excel. She would prove herself worthy of the chance and in no time she would find herself in the fray, dropped right in the middle of chaos. For now they were winning. For now the Jaeger program was working in pushing back, in fighting back. But for how long?

“I chose this,” Riisa said quietly. She crossed the room and held his face in her hands, and Nino shook his head for one last time to tell her wordlessly not to go. She leaned forward, kissing his forehead in farewell, something he did that one stormy night when he left their home in Katsushika for good. “You understand, don’t you? This is something I have to do.”

He held her hands against his own before nodding, almost laughing at her quoting his own words back at him. He never thought the day would come. He pulled back a little to look into her eyes, and he found himself meeting her smile with his own. He reached in one of his pockets and pulled out an orange string bracelet Riisa made for him many years ago, back when she was still addicted to the things and the art of making them. He always kept it with him, treating it as a good luck charm.

He handed it to her, closing his palm over hers. “If I can’t stop you, I want you to come back and return that to me.” He looked up, meeting her eyes and her smile. “When this is all over and the world is kaiju-free. Come back and give that to me. Or make me a new one. That one’s nearly black instead of orange from all the dirt, after all.”

Riisa laughed a little, punching him lightly on the arm. She gave him a brief nod, and Nino watched her sling her bag on her shoulder. She turned to do his trademark salute before leaving, and that was the last time Nino saw his twin.

\--

They came from the sky.

Nino remembers how they took Tokyo along with the surrounding prefectures, even as far as Iwate in the north and Shizuoka in the south. He also remembers how the world convened to stop them and how it worked, but only for a while.

Mostly, he remembers how they took his sister away.

He doesn’t know whom to blame. Does he blame the kaiju for coming out of nowhere, for falling like meteors from outer space and invading Earth by trampling down everything in their path? Does he blame the world leaders for accepting a robotic program which ended up saving a couple of cities all over the world? Does he blame the soldiers for not doing a good enough job that they ended up needing volunteers, more people who were willing to fight? Does he blame Riisa for her decision to stand up to her morals, for sticking to her beliefs till the end?

In the end, when Nino stares at the nearly faded 589 on his wrist, all he ends up blaming is himself. He tells himself he could have tried harder to stop her, that he could have done all he could to not let her walk out of the door of their shared room. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her from the very beginning and should have chosen her instead of a guitar that was probably crushed under a kaiju’s feet from the first wave.

At times, Nino wonders what could have been Riisa’s last thoughts. He looked up the Jaeger program after she had signed up for it and found that it worked using the consciousness of two people. Whoever was partnered with Riisa had full access to her thoughts until her last breath. Whenever Nino thinks of this partner, he wonders if that person is still alive. He never heard about it anymore because he ceased following the news once he got word on her death. In the end, it didn’t matter to him whoever got her killed. She’s dead and he’s totally alone, no family of his own and awaiting death at the hands of gigantic monsters from outer space.

He ends up volunteering in Fukuoka to build vessels to carry people out of Earth once the kaiju take over the planet. Where the people of Earth will go after is uncertain, but Nino thinks it doesn’t matter if they end up trying to establish life on another planet or end up drifting in outer space for the rest of their lives.

To him, nothing matters anymore. He doesn’t intend to join them anyway. Once the evacuation protocol begins and the spacecrafts get loaded, he intends to remain where he is and await whatever fate is bestowed upon him along with his home planet. Riisa made her choice, and this is him making his.

He’s hefting a short steel bar over his shoulders when Maruyama calls out his name. Nino only knows him because he is the only optimist in the bunch of workers, always loud and making jokes just to lighten the mood.

“Someone’s here for you,” Maru tells him, and he simply shrugs. He has no idea who it might be, not when he’s the only Ninomiya of his bloodline that he knows to be living. Most of his friends in Tokyo didn’t make it out, and even if they did, they didn’t keep in touch. Riisa was the only one he had and even she was taken away from him. It no longer matters who’s looking for him and if Nino knew the person or not.

He hears his name being called out and he turns along with Maru, who eventually excuses himself. He sees a man almost as tall as he is, wearing a graying jumpsuit along with faded boots and Nino immediately knows that he isn’t from around here. Probably belongs up north where the fight is going on.

When Nino looks up, he notices that the stranger possesses patient eyes. “Are you him?” the stranger asks him, and Nino waits. “Ninomiya Kazunari?”

Nino snorts, pulling up his sleeve to show the number on his wrist. “I’m 589,” he states, a little defiant. He started going by 589 whenever someone asked him if he was indeed the brother of one of the pilots. Riisa gained a popularity for herself after the siege of Nagano, and everyone around him at that time congratulated him on her behalf.

He continues referring to himself as 589 even after her death; he felt that a part of him died with her anyway. “What do you want?” he asks, keeping the bar balanced on his shoulder and walking once more.

“You look just like her,” the stranger murmurs, and Nino drops the aluminum bar with a deafening clang and whips his head angrily.

He approaches the stranger in tiny steps, pointing to the man's face with an accusatory finger. “What do you want? What, getting her killed isn’t enough for you guys? Have you come to kill me too, the twin? Is that how it goes? Did you come all the way from the fancy training center up there in Osaka, all the way down here to finally seal the deal?” He’s breathing hard and seeing red, and he thinks it won’t take much effort on his part to rip this man to shreds or strangle him to death. This stranger is rubbing salt to the wound, reminding him of what he lost.

Nino feels like this stranger is the face of god mocking him, telling him that every day he spends in front of the mirror tearing up at the sight of his own face isn’t enough repentance and regret, that he hasn’t smashed enough mirrors in his anger and suffering.

“You think I’d go all the way here from our ‘fancy training center’ to come and kill you when the kaiju will eventually do that for me?” the stranger asks, his eyes still the same patient ones from earlier. Nino seethes, hating every bit of understanding he can see in those. This man doesn’t understand anything about what he’s feeling, how he’s feeling.

He doesn’t need this man’s sympathy.

Nino grabs the stranger’s shoulders and shoves him back. “Then what do you want? Did it take you that much time to find the only family she had left? Have you come to offer your sympathies to the remaining family? You’re a few years too late, I’m afraid; I would have expected the flowers some three years ago, not now.”

The stranger stumbles a little in his steps, but when he meets Nino’s eyes, there’s no hint of anger in them still. Nino wishes he could see even a sliver of it so he can justify acting in accordance what his hands are itching for him to do.

The man shakes his head. “I didn’t come here to tell you I’m sorry for your loss, although I am. I came here to ask the impossible from you.” The stranger looks at him in all seriousness then. “I’m here to ask you to come to Osaka.”

Somehow, a bubble of laughter manages to escape from Nino’s throat. “What, so you can get me killed too? So I was right; killing one of the twins isn’t enough for you guys. You want me to go up there, do what she did, only to die like she did? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Another body count to your program, another Ninomiya?”

The stranger sighs. “I won’t deny that I want you to come up to Osaka to undergo training. That’s exactly the reason I’m here. But as for dying, that’s up to you. We’re all going to die anyway, Ninomiya-san. You know it yourself. These vessels? These spaceships you’re helping to build, they have nowhere to go. And should you plan to stay behind, there’s nothing on Earth but death. Even now, there’s nothing but death. If you come to Osaka, your chances of dying increase tenfold. But it’s not up to me how you die.” The man fixes him with a look, and Nino sees conviction in the stranger’s eyes. “That’s up to you. So I’m only going to ask once: how long do you intend to hide?”

Nino acts on instinct, grabbing the man’s collar forcefully and snarling at his face. “You know nothing about me.”

The stranger meets his eyes calmly. “You’re right, I don’t. But I knew your sister. And I like to believe that a part of her lives inside you, the part that believes in something and has made the decision to take a stand.”

Nino shoves the stranger away. “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he murmurs, shutting his eyes. “I’m not my sister. We may look alike, but I’m not her. I can’t do what she did. She won back how many prefectures for you? Six? I can’t do that. Look at me.” He spreads his palms for effect, laughing bitterly as the stranger takes in his form. “I’m just a guy lifting steel bars and putting them in place. You’re right, we’re all going to die. And my sister chose to die in a Jaeger.”

“And you?” the man asks him. “How do you choose to die? Atoning for your sister by lifting steel bars and preparing for other people’s departure from Earth? Or remembering her and using that memory as a resolve to do something right?”

Nino laughs bitterly. “How do you even know if I’m doing something right? I thought I was doing something right when I allowed her to go, when I didn’t try harder to stop her. And where did that lead me? Where did that lead her? Don’t tell me what’s right or wrong when you don’t even know me.”

“Then your sister was wrong to believe in you,” the stranger declares calmly, and Nino wants to wrap his fingers around the man’s throat for being so presumptive, but he only clenches his fists in anger. The man continues despite seeing his obvious distress. “Before the fall of Yamanashi, she told me that if she didn’t make it, I would have to find you. She said you would know what to do, that you would know why she said that. She told me you’d understand.”

Nino closes his eyes, unable to look at the man’s face anymore. Yamanashi was where Riisa died, having been overpowered by a category IV kaiju. Nino didn’t delve into much details at the time; the shock of losing her hit him too hard. “Are you saying this is her dying wish? For me to follow you to Osaka?” he says, voice shaky. He long wondered what Riisa’s last thoughts were, if she ever regretted doing what she did and not staying behind. To finally know the truth from a man he only met today is a bit too much to take in.

The man shakes his head. “I don’t know if it was a wish on her part or an order. I just knew I had to do it out of respect for what she did for you, for me, and for all of us.”

Nino’s eyes snap open then, meeting the stare of the stranger. “The one who was in the Jaeger with her at that time,” Nino says carefully, “is that person still alive?”

The stranger blinks, as if processing why Nino doesn’t know, but he recovers immediately. “Yes. He’s in Osaka.”

Nino narrows his eyes, his hands still clenched into fists, his nails digging into his own palms. “Take me to him, then,” he says, and when the stranger frowns, Nino begins to lead the way out of the shipyard, his footsteps echoing in their heaviness. “You asked how long I intended to hide. Take me to that man so I can answer that question for myself. He was still connected to her when she died, wasn’t he?”

The stranger matches his pace and nods, almost imperceptible given their quick strides, but Nino caught it. “That’s how drifting works.”

Once out of the shipyard and breathing air that doesn’t smell like metals being welded, Nino exhales. “Then you need to promise me that you will take me to that guy so I will have my answers. I will not go to Osaka for you, whoever you are. I’m going up there for her, and if I don’t get what I want, your program can go to hell for all I care.”

“Very well. I promise.” The stranger nods, holding out a hand for him to shake. Nino takes it cautiously, and the man smiles for the first time since their meeting. “Ohno Satoshi,” the man introduces himself, bowing a little. “I’m the Osaka Shatterdome fightmaster.”

\--

The Shatterdome is filled with people, some even younger than Nino, when he arrives in the main platform with Ohno Satoshi. They’d taken another truck ride which reminded Nino of the last time he’d been in one, only that this time he was going closer to where the war is instead of running away from it.

Ohno leads him inside the dome in confident strides despite their lack of sleep and food. They’d had to travel for an entire day to reach Osaka, and it had taken them longer than expected for they had to avoid several areas that were impassable due to the debris. Some people shoot salutes in their way and Ohno simply waves them off. Nino is on his guard; he still doesn’t trust Ohno Satoshi despite the man’s calm behavior towards him. Besides, Ohno is supposedly taking him to the man who was with her sister in her dying moments. Nino thinks he needs all of his wits with him to be able to look at that man in the face and not spit on him or try to harm him in any way.

Nino is led to a set of brass doors without labels, each going as high as thirty feet tall. Beside him, Ohno keys in a number code to open them, and what greets Nino is the sight of more than a dozen volunteers sparring.

He frowns as the volunteers stand in attention at the sight of Ohno, and Ohno waves a hand to indicate that they are to resume training. “These are your training grounds,” Nino states, and he hears Ohno’s approving hum. “Why are we here? You promised I would meet the person who was with her at that time.”

Ohno enters the hall and Nino has no choice but to follow, matching the man’s slow strides. He sees Ohno’s eyes darting from one volunteer to another, how Ohno observes every movement of the volunteers. “You will meet him,” Ohno assures him as they walk the corners of the combat hall. “But only when you’re both ready.”

Nino yanks at Ohno’s arm, halting their movement. “If, from the beginning, you planned to sign me up for the program before holding up your end of the deal,” he begins, but Ohno lifts a hand to cut him off and points to his tight grip on the man’s bicep.

“I have every intention of keeping my promise, but you’re a cadet now, Ninomiya-san,” Ohno informs him, wrenching away from his grip successfully. Nino is now starting to understand how Ohno became the fightmaster. “The moment you stepped inside this hall, you’re automatically a volunteer and a cadet under me. Therefore, you’re only ready when I say you’re ready, and that includes meeting him. And right now, you are not ready.”

Nino keeps his rage in check. “You manipulative bastard,” he accuses through gritted teeth. “You’re saying I have to pass all these tests, whatever’s in your curriculum, to be able to know the truth about my sister? Who are you to deny me that?”

“I’m not denying you anything,” Ohno says calmly, his eyes on the rest of the trainees. “But as a fightmaster, my job is to make you field ready, and that includes your stability. I need you on your feet out there, not on your knees. With the way you are now, you won’t be able to handle whatever truth you want to know, whatever it is you think you’re prepared to know.”

Nino snorts, trying to resist the urge to punch Ohno in the face. “I get to decide that, not you.”

Ohno turns, meeting his angry eyes with very calm ones. “You’re right, I don’t. But in order to fully comprehend whatever answers you’re looking for, you need to understand what kind of world this is, what kind of world those answers are in.”

“Her world, you mean,” Nino clarifies with narrowed eyes, and Ohno nods. “You’re telling me I need to step into her world, to see what she saw, to feel what she felt, and to do what she did before I get to meet the guy who let her die?”

Ohno takes a deep breath, blinking for a few moments in thought. “All I’m saying is that you need to be ready,” Ohno says, his eyes on the pairs of cadets sparring. “And that I can help you get there as soon as possible.” Ohno tilts his head to the side, gesturing to another set of metal doors at the far corner of the room. “Shall we?”

The fightmaster walks without waiting for his confirmation, and Nino spends a few seconds composing himself before following. Ohno takes him past the metal doors which reveal a hangar, and Nino lays eyes on a set of Jaegers for the first time.

Riisa piloted these things? That girl three minutes younger than him who cried when Nino told her there was no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow when they were five made these things move, gave them life to keep the monsters under the bed? Nino looks at the gigantic mecha and feels overwhelmed. These things— close to the size of the kaijus Nino only saw on the TV back in the evacuation facility in Shimane— are the same things he could only believe provided they were being projected by a monitor screen.

And now he’s clinging to a metal railing to maintain his balance as he looks at not only one but five of them standing side-by-side, with Ohno Satoshi, the fightmaster, expecting him to be ready to pilot one in less than six months from now.

Ohno points to a Jaeger on their right, one that is painted dark blue and looking almost black given the lack of light, but Nino doesn’t need proper lighting to recognize it. It’s the one Riisa took with her to win Nagano back, along with other five prefectures before her death in Yamanashi.

“Storm Sentinel,” Nino whispers, and Ohno nods. Nino turns to the man, unable to look at the robot any longer. “Wasn’t she destroyed? When… when Yamanashi wasn’t taken back.”

Ohno cocks his head. “Damaged, Ninomiya-san,” Ohno corrects him patiently, “not destroyed. She was out of commission for a good while, but the engineers finally got her working again after three long years of silence. She needs a co-pilot.”

Nino frowns at that. “What, the other co-pilot is already decided so you’re only looking for one he’s compatible with? And he’s the guy who let her die, isn’t he?” He laughs— a sarcastic sound that’s less audible given the welding noises going on under their feet. “Why is he returning to pilot these things? Is he that eager to have someone die who’s not him for the second time around?”

Ohno faces him with an unreadable expression. “It’s not my place to tell you what his reasons are even if I know them, as much as it’s not your place to speak on his behalf. You don’t know him yet. I know you’re angry, I know you’re confused and you have a lot of questions only he can answer. But like I said in the combat grounds, you are not ready.” Ohno fixes him a look. “And neither is he.”

He looks at Ohno, feeling utterly confused. “Cut the bullshit,” he demands, despite Ohno being his superior. Nino can’t care any less; he’s only here for someone he lost three years ago and instead of feeling closer to the truth he always craved, he feels farther from it than ever before. “If he’s not ready and I’m not ready, then you’re not keeping your promise. You brought me here because she asked you to. I can deal with this, even when I know that this is only partially true and you’re not telling me the rest. What I can’t deal with is you patronizing me. Why do I have to prove myself to you just so that I can hear something you have no right to hide from me in the first place? You said you weren’t denying me anything and yet here you are, standing in the way as I try to find my answers. Why do I have to undergo ranger training just to find what my sister’s last thoughts were? Why do I have to be her in order to know her?”

Ohno blinks once before turning back to the Jaegers assembled in front of them. Nino is trying hard not to reach out and push Ohno off the ledge. He’s angry, frustrated, and exhausted. Angry at Ohno being ambiguous, frustrated with himself and what he has to go through, and exhausted from the pangs of guilt catching up to him every time he stops running to catch his breath.

Hasn’t it been enough?

Ohno lets out a deep breath. “No one’s asking you to be her,“ Ohno claims, his fingers tapping against the metal railing in a beat Nino recognizes as an X-Japan song after listening to it intently. “But you’re right about one thing. You need to prove that you are ready to hear the truth.”

Nino can only say one word at this point. “Why?”

Ohno smiles, a sad one that somehow makes him look twice his age. Briefly, Nino wonders what kinds of horrors Ohno has seen in his career as a fightmaster. How many cadets of his died in the war? How many aspiring rangers did he train personally, only for them to never come back?

“Because it’s what she deserves,” Ohno declares, meeting his eyes sadly. Nino looks away after a moment; a bit of Ohno’s involvement now sinking in.

“You trained her,” Nino says, and it’s not even a question. “You watched over her and declared her combat ready, and one day she just didn’t come back.” He bites his lip and shuts his eyes, hearing the beating of his heart despite the activity in the hangar surrounding them. He’s trembling, and for the first time, he believes Ohno’s statement from earlier.

He’s not ready. He can’t take this.

He feels Ohno’s hand on his elbow, a soft touch that somehow reminds him that he’s not alone. “Come,” Ohno murmurs, already pulling him. He didn’t confirm any of Nino’s assumptions, but Nino knows his hunch is right because of the change in Ohno’s voice. Ohno tugs at him once more, and Nino lets go of the railing to let Ohno guide him.

“I’ll show you where the cafeteria is.”

\--

His first day ended with Ohno giving him a tour around the Shatterdome and giving him a tattered pamphlet for the Academy which included all the information about the curriculum Nino was signing up for. Ohno assigned him as the newest recruit under Delta Company and even went as far as introducing him to the company leader, Miyake from Kanagawa. Apparently, Ohno knew more than enough about Nino to be able to say that Nino came from Tokyo, although that bit might have been unnecessary given that most people he encountered in the Shatterdome so far immediately recognized his resemblance to his sister.

With twenty recruits in each of the Academy’s companies, Nino felt that being recruit number 20 made the other nineteen people he was assigned to share the room with eye him with either contempt or curiosity.

Refusing to find out which one it was, he walked up to his bunk and slept, aware that he was up for an early start the following morning according to the pamphlet Ohno handed to him.

He manages to make it to the first cut after eight weeks of combined learning and training. He learns more about robot mechanics and kaiju in here than in the hours he spent following Riisa’s victories back in the days. The more he learns, the more he realizes that he can never live up to his sister’s name.

It doesn’t help that there are recruits who look at him as if he knows what he’s doing. He often gets the “so you’re here to continue the legacy?” kind of questions and it takes a lot on his part not to punch that person in the face for asking. He wonders if that’s all his sister was to them, to everyone in this Shatterdome: a legacy. Was she ever human to them? Did they ever see that she was just a little girl trying to make a difference because not a lot of people were willing to?

Nino wonders if these people around him see him for who he truly is. He’s aware that to them he’s the twin, the brother who came three years later to finish what the sister started. The prodigal son. They expect much from him because of that, and while Nino doesn’t care if he lives up to the expectations or not, he wonders if this is what Riisa herself would have wanted for him to do.

He doesn’t know if he’s moving forward or not. He’s making progress, yes. He’s turned out to be a very promising cadet despite his reservations about the whole program, but that doesn’t help him sleep at night. At night, he hears the deafening roar of the kaiju from the first wave, and when he tries to shut his eyes tightly to remind himself that it’s all in his head, he sees his sister leaving for good instead. He finds no consolation from acting on his choices, no comfort in whatever he’s doing. He’s doing it for her, but he doesn’t even know if it’s what she wanted from him.

In his stay in the Shatterdome, he comes to know most of the people his sister interacted with. Sometimes Ohno introduces them to him, sometimes they look at him like they’ve seen a ghost and it’s then that Nino knows that they knew her. He laughs when the latter happens, when they look so struck upon looking at his face because it’s what he feels every time he looks at a mirror. He laughs because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know how to describe what being haunted feels like, how it feels it be followed around by a ghost who looks exactly like you. They won’t understand.

He’s on his tenth week when Ohno introduces him to one Sakurai Sho, the Shatterdome’s psych analyst. Sakurai shakes his hand with force and conviction, and for a moment Nino feels envious about how stable Sakurai seems to be.

Then again, Sakurai’s not the one who lost a twin and is being haunted because of it.

“So your job is to tinker with people’s brains like the engineers out there tinker with the Jaegers?” Nino asks, when Ohno has excused himself and he and Sakurai are standing in line in the cafeteria. “Evaluate if they make the cut by seeing if their mind can carry somebody else’s consciousness aside from their own?”

Sakurai sighs. “I wish it was that easy.” He doesn’t elaborate anymore, but when Nino makes it to the second cut, he finds out that Sakurai’s job is to make sure rangers have their wits with them, especially after surviving a kaiju attack.

“Most people here are traumatized,” Sakurai explains. “Some are traumatized after piloting a Jaeger and seeing a kaiju up close, and yet there are those who haven’t even set foot inside a Jaeger and are no less traumatized than the ones who did. My job is to make sure these people can control the trauma and can handle its manifestations. We’re all damaged in our own way, Ninomiya-san. But that doesn’t mean we’re beaten.”

Nino eventually puts Sakurai in the same category as he put Ohno in: idealists. Ohno has his idealistic views on how the world can be, provided they push back with enough force to delay doomsday for one more day. Sakurai, meanwhile, has his idealistic views on how people can be provided they’re given the right push.

More often than not, Nino feels like he’s an ongoing experiment for these people, here for their combined entertainment and curiosity. Will he turn out to be like Riisa? Will he make it past through the third and final cut? Will he stand inside a Jaeger and help the resistance? What if he doesn’t get to do any of that? Are there bets under his name, something like ‘those betting on Ninomiya Kazunari making it, please place your bets on the left’?

Sometimes he thinks on Sakurai’s claim that they’re all damaged. Nino won’t deny it. He’s here in an attempt to silence his ghosts but he feels them louder and more noticeable than ever before, like they’re gaining on him and he’s running out of places to go and hide. He’s here to find answers but instead of feeling closer to them, he feels as if all ways leading to them are currently barred shut. He often wonders what it’ll be like once he meets the person Riisa was drift compatible with. Ohno has been particularly skilled at dodging his questions and evading him entirely.

If he meets that person, that one who holds all the answers he’s sought ever since her death, he wonders if the hatred that he let fester inside him will finally expose itself. He wonders if he can handle standing in that person’s presence and not blame him for everything, all because he can’t find it in him to blame himself. Vengeance is like an open wound, and Nino’s has been ignored for too long.

Damaged, Sakurai said.

Nino laughs, thinking that Sakurai’s still an idealist for his desire to help every single damaged person in this Shatterdome, but at least he’s realistic enough to acknowledge that they’re all fucked up in their own little ways.

\--

Nino continues training. He completes the fourteen-hour long daily training in the combat halls, mastering his moves and letting himself be pushed to his physical and mental limits. He has Ohno’s ever-watchful eye on him as he strikes down one cadet from another, claiming one victory after the other.

People tell him he shows a lot of promise. Nino can’t wait to show them what’s inside his head, the final step that will determine if he can do what Riisa did or not, if he deserves to learn about her final moments in the field or not.

He’s pinning down a fellow cadet from the Beta Company when Ohno declares, “That’ll be enough, Nino.” Ohno has grown familiar with him, but instead of using his given name, Ohno took the liberty of going with the way most people referred to him. Maybe Riisa told him about the nickname during her stay. Nino doesn’t ask anymore. Just to know that she walked the same halls as he’s doing now, that she did the same things, has him wanting to throw a sheet over himself and stay there until the ghosts have calmed down.

Nino lets go, offering a hand to his sparring partner to help him get back on his feet, and when Nino looks up, Ohno’s eyes are different. Nino’s aware that they haven’t found anyone compatible with him yet and time is running out. He’s nearing the end of the training and he can’t step inside a simulator without anyone deemed to be drift compatible with him.

It’s then he notices someone else standing beside Ohno, someone taller with broader shoulders still evident in his dark jumpsuit. When the stranger looks up and their eyes meet, Nino is filled with so many things at once: shock, followed by recognition, and finally, anger.

He trembles, but it’s unlike the trembling he felt coursing through him during the first wave when Riisa had to hand him a glass of water with shaking hands. He’s quaking for a different reason this time, and it’s the fact that he’s finally staring at the face of the person who stood beside Riisa in all those victories. Nino has forgotten his name, deemed it unimportant after his sister’s death, but he wouldn’t forget the face. The large, almost blaring features, the signs of weariness evident in every shift of his expression.

It’s him.

Any confirmation Nino would ever need is on the man’s face. He looks cornered, like someone forgot to lock the door and all the monsters came rushing in at the same time. He looks at Nino like he has seen a ghost, and Nino wants to laugh because that’s exactly what it is. He’s the spitting image of the one that died in this man’s hands, and it takes all of Nino’s control not to grab a fencing sword nearby and challenge the man to a spar that’ll be far from friendly.

“Nino.” Ohno’s voice coaxes him, and he’s breathing hard as he turns to the fightmaster.

“After weeks of evading me, this is how you intend to keep your promise?” Nino asks through clenched teeth and equally clenched fists. His eyes are still on the stranger with Ohno, and it takes all of Nino’s effort not to cross the room and demand the answers for himself. “Ninomiya Kazunari,” he says slowly, introducing himself. Everyone in the sparring hall has their eyes on them now, but Nino doesn’t care. “Though I suppose you already know that, having been inside her brain so many times. We meet at last.”

He’s seeing red and he’s trapped in a haze that he knows that if this man with Ohno says the wrong thing, Nino can no longer account for what he might do.

“Matsumoto,” is all the man says, and Nino turns to Ohno.

“May I spar with him, fightmaster?” he asks respectfully, and he sees the recognition in Ohno’s eyes. Nino has never addressed Ohno using his position in the Academy until now, and he knows Ohno can see the unmistakable intent in his eyes.

“I didn’t bring him here to fight you,” Ohno says quickly, and Nino laughs, a rather hollow sound that silences everyone murmuring around them. Nino walks to a nearby shelf and grabs two bo staffs, tossing the other to Matsumoto who catches it reflexively.

Ohno looks disapproving, but Nino won’t let someone like him stop him now. “I’m not interested in your intentions, Ohno-san. I’m interested in his,” he says, pointing to Matsumoto using the staff in his right hand as he walks back to the center of the hall.

Nino sneers, finally remembering the name. “Because you didn’t come here to just meet the ghost in the flesh, did you, Jun-kun?”

The other cadets make a clearing, and Nino waits in the center. Ohno shakes his head in disappointment at him, but damn him. Nino played the good pupil for too long. He has excelled in his studies for it to come to this.

“You are not ready,” Ohno says firmly, although whether he says that to Nino or to Matsumoto or to the both of them, Nino isn’t sure.

But Nino looks at Ohno, eyes defiant. “I get to decide that now. I spent weeks hearing you say that. But now that he’s here,” he pauses, pointing at Matsumoto once more, “I get to decide that for myself. And I’ve been preparing myself for this.”

He sees Ohno and Matsumoto talk it over and Nino waits impatiently, maneuvering his staff under his arm and assuming the stance. He catches Ohno’s almost imperceptible nod of agreement after a moment, and Matsumoto turns to him with resignation in his features as he unbuttons the top of his jumpsuit to tie the sleeves around his narrow waist, revealing a shirt underneath.

Matsumoto crosses to the center of the room and stops in front of him, and Nino wonders what it’s like for him. Is it like preparing himself to fight Riisa once more? Does he remember the first time he and Riisa sparred in this hall as he faces Nino now?

“I thought I taught you never to attack in anger,” Ohno says from the corner of the room, and Nino smirks as he squares his shoulders, seeing Matsumoto assume his ready stance.

“You taught me a great many things, fightmaster,” Nino acknowledges, never looking away from Matsumoto’s eyes. The same eyes that saw his sister die three-something years ago. How does Nino look to him right now?

“This isn’t me being angry,” Nino admits as he and Matsumoto circle each other. “This is me trying to find the one thing you promised me.”

Nino makes the first strike, lunging and aiming for Matsumoto’s side, only for his attack to be deflected by a perfectly placed staff. He’s good, Nino will give him that, but Nino worked hard to get to this point. He pivots, twisting his trunk to evade a strike aimed at his chin, and crouches down to sweep his staff under Matsumoto’s feet to knock the man off balance, but Matsumoto jumps at the right time and rolls onto his back to put distance between them.

“It’s not a fight,” Ohno calls out as a reminder as he and Matsumoto stare each other down. “We don’t fight here, we measure compatibility. Don’t let your anger dictate your moves.”

Matsumoto makes the first move this time, changing his grip on his staff to aim for Nino’s temple, but Nino ducks down and twists his wrist to land a strike near Matsumoto’s eye. He stops at the right moment, the smoothness of his staff resting against Matsumoto’s skin but not inflicting damage, and Nino meets the man’s eyes before smirking.

“You’re not going to lose to a cadet just because he has her face, are you?” he asks, and something flashes over Matsumoto’s eyes. “I don’t want your sympathy. I didn’t come all this way for your pity.”

Matsumoto pushes his staff away using his own, shifting his grip on the wood to aim at his side, and Nino sidesteps to evade the lunge. “What was it like to let her die?” Nino asks in a voice quiet enough so only Matsumoto can hear him. “What was it like to watch her die when you could have saved her?”

Nino blocks a blow aimed at his head, seeing fear and guilt in Matsumoto’s expressive eyes. “You were still connected to her when it happened,” Nino says carefully, and he watches how it affects Matsumoto, how he blinks the memories away and how his grip on the staff tightens. Nino flicks his staff upward, aiming for Matsumoto’s chin, but the move is blocked by a precisely positioned staff, its tip resting right at his throat.

“Jun,” he hears Ohno call out softly, like a reminder, and Nino uses that distraction to knock Matsumoto on his back, but before he can deliver a blow aimed at the other man’s temple, Matsumoto manages to roll over and sweep under his feet, making him lose his balance and land on his back instead. Nino gets the tip of the man’s staff pointed to his face, and sneers.

“If anyone’s keeping tabs,” he calls out for everyone to hear before maneuvering his feet to entangle his legs with Matsumoto’s to knock the man down, and Nino gets on his knee to rest his staff against the man’s cheek, “we’re now at two-two.”

He hears some of the recruits in the hall cheer his name, an odd chorus of Nino along with shouts of “best of three!” Nino thinks it won’t take much on his part to strike Matsumoto down. But Matsumoto pushes his staff away to do a forward roll to get on his feet, his knuckles white from the grip he has on his staff.

He has never answered to any of Nino’s taunts and questions, to any of Nino’s reminders of what happened, and Nino wonders how he keeps it together. Nino can see fear in his expression, hesitation in his moves, and restraint determining all of his actions, as if he’s terrified of what he could do to Nino and afraid of Nino at the same time.

Sakurai’s voice resonates in Nino’s head. Matsumoto’s clearly damaged, probably not too different from Storm Sentinel herself after the failed siege of Yamanashi, but unlike the Jaeger that was restored to optimum performance after three years, Matsumoto was never the same. What kind of horrors did he see, Nino wonders? What was it like for him to be there but unable to do anything?

Nino suddenly feels conflicted. He’s angry at this man, but he’s also angry at himself. He feels guilty for what he said earlier, all those insensitive things he said out of rage. The vengeful feelings remain, but they seem to have been quietened, even subsided. He thinks his guilt is not too different from Matsumoto’s in origin, just different in manifestation. Matsumoto won’t look him in the eye for too long, like he’s unable to look at Nino’s face because of what it reminds him of. Nino’s guilt manifests in the way he dials down his strikes, the way he shuts his mouth as he delivers one blow after another, all of which Matsumoto easily evades and blocks.

Ohno’s claim from earlier, that he’s not ready, rings in his ears, and Nino finally acknowledges it to be true when Matsumoto does a sweep maneuver and places the tip of his bo staff right between Nino’s eyes, leaving Nino effectively trapped.

“Two-three,” Ohno calls out before declaring it’s enough, and Matsumoto moves away from him quickly. He offers a shaky hand to help Nino up but Nino pushes it away, getting on his feet all by himself.

He meets Ohno’s eyes. “You’re not yet ready, cadet,” Ohno says in a voice that leaves no room for argument, and Nino straightens his back and squares his shoulders, looking at the spot behind Ohno as he asks for his dismissal. Ohno grants it with a nod, and Nino refuses to meet anyone’s eyes as he deposits the staff back in the rack, but he can feel Matsumoto’s piercing gaze on him as he walks away and departs the combat hall.


	2. Chapter 2

Nino doesn’t show up for any subsequent trainings after that, and when someone bangs loudly on the door demanding for him, he thinks it’s one of the random people Ohno sent. He resolves to ignore it, but whoever’s behind it is persistent enough that Nino sighs before sliding his door open.

He finds himself greeted by a grinning face.

“Took you long enough to open! I thought I’d break my hand in there,” the man says, massaging his knuckles.

Nino frowns, opening his mouth to ask what this person wants from him, but the man speaks again. “Leader wants you in the simulation hall. I’m Aiba by the way,” he says, extending a hand, something Nino takes cautiously. Aiba shakes his hand enthusiastically, his grip tight and intention clear. “I design the simulations, try to make them as real as possible. Whatever. Leader wants you to come in.”

Nino’s been in the Shatterdome long enough to know that Leader is another nickname people have for Ohno, probably because he’s one of the smoothest fighters the Shatterdome has. Majority of what Nino learned in the combat room is thanks to Ohno guiding his moves and telling him how and when to move, and while Nino has never seen Ohno fully in action, he thinks the man won’t get the fightmaster position just so.

“I’m not ready,” Nino informs Aiba, but Aiba simply shrugs.

“Not up to me to question Leader. He wants you in, and if you’re not coming, well, that’s going to be a problem for me too, so can you please just step outside of this room and come with me? Please? I got you to open the door, after all. And just so you know, I still have eight simulations to finish after this and they’re all category III ones. Please, please, Nino?” Aiba has both hands clasped together and is looking at him with hopeful eyes, and while Nino’s a bit surprised by the casual use of his nickname, he sighs and relents.

Aiba leads him to the simulation hall and they hold a lighthearted conversation on their way there. He walks with a spring in his step so different from Ohno’s quiet or Sakurai’s careful, almost measured stride. There and then he seems as unstoppable as a Jaeger in full armor after a kaiju victory and Nino feels small standing next to him.

“What was her record?” Nino asks when they turn around a corner and are looking at the doors of the simulation hall a few feet away. “My sister’s.”

“Forty-eight drops, forty-eight kills,” Aiba says immediately. “I don’t forget the ones who make a record, you know? Your sister was something else. She still holds the highest simulation score in this Shatterdome even now.”

“Even higher than Matsumoto’s?” Nino asks, an eyebrow quirked. Aiba merely nods, and so Nino pushes. “What’s his score?”

Aiba pauses in front of the door, not keying the number code on the console to open them yet. “Before?” Aiba asks, eyes turning serious. “Or after?”

Before Nino gets to open his mouth, Aiba quickly types in a set of numbers, causing the sliding doors to open to reveal Ohno. Aiba pushes him lightly with a hand on his back. “Brought him in, Leader! Sorry for the lateness, but he wouldn’t open the damn door until I thought my hand was going to fall off.”

Ohno lets out a little chuckle at Aiba’s statement before nodding in thanks, and Aiba leaves him, never answering the question regarding Matsumoto. Behind Ohno are glass screens spanning nearly twenty feet in height and fifty feet in width, and Nino sees an entire company of cadets undergoing a simulation labeled as ‘Hawthorn ver. 3’.

“You said I’m not ready,” Nino says when he feels Ohno’s eyes on him, and he hears Ohno hum.

“I did,” Ohno agrees, “but I didn’t specify what for.”

Nino turns to him, and Ohno tilts his head towards the simulation. “You haven’t been in a simulation before. You have easily pinned down and pummeled most of the cadets until a few days ago, but we’ve never put you in a simulation because Sho-chan didn’t recommend it.”

Nino frowns. So Sakurai was the reason he was never picked to be a part of the recruits undergoing this kind of training despite his promise and skill in the combat hall? “And? What made your ‘Sho-chan’ relent to my case?”

Ohno shakes his head. “Not what. Who.” He extends a hand to lead Nino to the control room where he can see Aiba pressing keys in succession as he runs from one monitor to the next. “Sho-kun thinks you’re not up for this, given your psych eval. I tried to talk him out of it but he said you were too focused on your anger and too confused.”

Ohno doesn’t say it, but Nino knows Sho must have called him “too damaged”.

Nino snorts. “So Sho-chan talks to me sometimes but what he reports to you is how he already psychoanalyzed me? Awesome. I don’t remember signing a letter of consent.” He fixes Ohno a look. “You didn’t answer my question, sir,” he adds sarcastically, not missing the way Ohno’s lips curl to a small smile at his audacity.

“The reason you’re here, Nino,” Ohno explains as the ongoing simulation ends and a couple of Aiba’s interns begin strapping different parts of a drivesuit in Nino’s form, “is that Jun needs your simulation score.”

That makes Nino pause, allowing one intern to strap a small plate to his wrist, one that connects him to the simulation control room. Another intern hands over a helmet for him to put on, and Nino takes it unconsciously. “For what?” Nino asks, taking deep breaths to control himself. “What does he need my score for? You said I’m not ready.”

“You’re not,” Ohno agrees for the second time with a nod, but then he smiles. “So we’ll take it one step at a time. Sentinel’s not going anywhere without a co-pilot, after all. But first, you have to show me what you’ve got. You’re up for five drops for today. Let’s see how many you can take down.”

\--

The days turn to a couple of weeks and while Nino doesn’t beat his sister’s record of forty-eight, he still makes it to a decent forty-five, making Ohno declare that it’s enough.

“Still not ready?” Nino asks the fightmaster as he removes the helmet of his drivesuit.

Ohno grins. “For what’s coming? No. But no time like the present, so come with me.”

Nino’s still trying to catch his breath after splitting Aiba’s newly-designed category IV simulation in half, but he follows Ohno anyway. “Where are you taking me now?”

“To the one thing you’ve been preparing yourself for,” Ohno says, vague as ever, but when Nino stops him with a hand on his elbow, he clarifies. “You’re up for drifting.”

That makes Nino stop in his movements, his grip on Ohno loosening. He has seen forty-five of Aiba’s realistic kaiju simulations, even one that looked exactly like the one that ravaged Tokyo during the first wave. He knows how it feels like to almost die despite those forty-five being only simulations, because Aiba made them believable enough that it felt like he was fighting one up close. He knows fear, knows how it feels as it runs through his blood and leaving it cold, the skin above it feeling brittle and breakable despite the impossibility of it.

It still doesn’t prepare him for the fear of someone seeing his mind for the first time, now that Ohno has given the approval. It doesn’t prepare him for being frightened of what he’s going to see in his partner’s mind and what’s on his mind. He only knows of drifting theoretically thanks to the first weeks he spent in officer training. He is yet to know the sensation of it, yet to experience it, but he fears that Ohno may be right once more.

“I’m not ready for this,” he admits ahead of time, and Ohno stops in his steps to face him. Nino shakes his head. “I’m not. You can ask Sho-chan. I may have given you forty-five drops and forty-five kills in a span of days, but if you’re telling me you found someone compatible with me and that person is waiting behind that door, I’m saying I’m not ready for it. I won’t allow a stranger into my mind, not when I’ve never been compatible with anyone in all those hours I spent in the combat room.”

Ohno regards him with eyes full of understanding. “You’re not letting a stranger into your mind,” he says quietly, reaching out to squeeze Nino’s shoulder in a reassuring manner.

“Matsumoto,” Nino murmurs, and even though it’s not a question, Ohno nods. “You think I can handle that?”

Ohno’s as honest as ever. “No,” he replies quickly, “but we don’t have the time to wait for you to be ready. You wanted answers since day one. Now the only thing standing between you and those answers is this door behind me. The higher-ups want Niigata taken back. And we need all five Jaegers we have running and ready for that to happen.”

“If there’s one thing I learned in officer training about drifting, it’s that drifting is about trust,” Nino says and Ohno listens to him quietly. “You’re asking me to trust Matsumoto to be inside my head as much as he’d trust me to be inside his. You’re asking me to trust the guy who let my sister die not to let the same thing happen to me. Sounds a little far-fetched, don’t you think?”

“Forty-five,” Ohno says suddenly, and Nino frowns in confusion. “Aiba-chan told me you asked for Jun’s simulation score. Forty-five. That was before, when he was still a cadet along with your sister. He did the simulation again before I called for you some days ago, and he dropped to thirty-six. Between you and him, I’d say you’re more likely to be ready than he is. And yet he’s behind this door waiting for you because I said so.” Ohno stares at him in all seriousness. “I’m not asking you to do anything, Nino. I can always find someone else who’s willing. It’s up to you if you want to trust him. It’s up to you if you want to stay angry. I’ve got baggage of my own so don’t ask me to carry yours, cadet. I’m only here to offer you a chance, but whether it is a fighting chance or not is up to you.”

Ohno turns around then, keying in his sequence to reveal the hangar where Storm Sentinel lies in wait. Ohno doesn’t look at him anymore, but Nino resolves to follow, until Ohno stops in front of the entrance to the Jaeger’s cockpit.

“I’ll be in the control room,” Ohno says, already excusing himself. “So go get yourself strapped up if you think you’re ready. Don’t bother stepping inside that robot’s Conn-Pod if you’re not up for it. But if you’re thinking there’s always a next time, there isn’t. We have no time to wait around here. Not when the kaiju activities are spiking again and reclaiming prefectures we already got back.”

Ohno leaves him, and before Nino can rethink his decision, he steps inside the Sentinel’s Conn-Pod, meeting Matsumoto Jun’s eyes when the man turns around at the sound of his footsteps.

Nino hasn’t seen him ever since he won in the combat room. Whenever he remembers Matsumoto Jun he thinks of retribution and all the supposedly satisfying feelings that come with it. He feels nothing of the sort at the moment, but today, he feels closer to the sweet promise of it than he’s ever been, and it’s enough to make him throw caution to the wind despite his reservations towards his preparedness.

“I’m not doing this because Ohno asked,” Nino declares flatly, knowing Ohno can hear him in the intercom. “And I don’t trust you to have my back, not when you had hers at that time and yet she still died. But there are questions about her that have always haunted me, and you’re the one person who can either silence those things that keep me up at night or give them extra firepower. I’m risking it anyway. For her.” Nino doesn’t know what else to say to him, so he simply walks to the left hemisphere and puts his helmet on.

“We’re both not ready for this,” he hears Matsumoto say, and he doesn’t know if the man’s talking to him or to Ohno, but it’s Ohno who replies via the connected communication systems as the Sentinel’s spinal clamp attaches itself to Nino’s and his partner’s back.

“We’ll find that out soon enough. If one of you ever ends up chasing the rabbit,” Ohno begins, and Nino snorts, “can I ask the other to prevent any damage to the Shatterdome to the best of his ability? We need to fire these plasma cannons on kaijus, not on our hulls.”

“You’re trusting us to prevent each other from going crazy?” Nino asks, and he hears Ohno sigh. “That’s a lot of risk.”

“Well, Jun-tan’s got the right hemisphere,” he hears Aiba’s voice, “so no, still not as much risk as putting you on the right, Nino. You’re pretty volatile and who knows? You might missile-launcher us once you get the chance!”

“If I get back still sane and functioning I will missile-launcher you the next time I step inside your lab,” Nino claims as the relay gel washes over the surface of his helmet. He knows it’s any moment now, and when he makes the mistake of blinking, he and Matsumoto somehow achieve neural handshake.

It’s like riding a rollercoaster, although Nino has never been fond of the things. In seconds he sees flashes: Matsumoto as a child, the sound of his laughter, his cries, his seeming popularity in kindergarten, that moment in his life where a truck hit him but he still apologized to the driver profusely for his mistake. Nino also sees Matsumoto in high school, how he keeps on eating sandwiches during homeroom periods despite the teacher forbidding him to.

A bit of a rebel, Nino thinks just as the scenery changes.

The next time Nino opens his eyes, he’s still inside the Storm Sentinel’s cockpit, but instead of being attached to the spinal clamp, he’s standing on the side, and he’s looking at Riisa wearing a drivesuit as she takes her place on the right hemisphere.

No one ever told him, but apparently his sister was the dominant pilot of Sentinel back in the days. Nino can only look at her, smiling with her eyes full of conviction, and he feels himself whisked away to even more memories. He sees Matsumoto and his sister’s first successful kill, feels the same elation and relief they felt as if it were his own. The sensations wash over Nino like a dam opened, and he feels his sister’s genuine joy, something he never felt before in his life.

The scenery shifts and Nino sees a raging storm as the Sentinel moves forward. He’s standing on the side of the cockpit, Riisa on the right and Matsumoto on the left, and in front of them is the one kaiju Nino would recognize in any shape or form; the one which killed her.

Nino realizes this is exactly what officer training was warning them about when they were told about the risks of drifting. He’s now in Matsumoto’s memory, seeing the secrets Matsumoto has to hide as much as Matsumoto sees his, but this is the one memory that he has always wanted to see, and it results in him latching on to it the first chance he gets.

“We’ve got this, Jun-kun,” he hears his sister say, and Nino can see and feel how much Matsumoto believed in her. Nino can’t blame him then; if Riisa said the same thing to him he would have believed her too. “We’ve got this one.”

When Nino blinks, it all happens so fast. He sees glimpses, some even as short as flashes of how the fight went on, but how it went downhill seems to happen in slow-motion for him to see fully: the kaiju overpowers the Sentinel and the cockpit begins collapsing, sparks flying overhead and the Sentinel’s A.I. declaring nearly every part of the Jaeger under critical condition. Alarms are blaring inside the Conn-Pod, and everything is red because of the emergency lighting. His sister is trapped in a collapsed ledge and Matsumoto is trying to get her out by lifting the ledge, but what they’re saying is something Nino can’t hear because the kaiju suddenly roars and delivers a blow using its spiked tail, sending the Sentinel flying.

In the next moment, Nino sees his sister’s lower form effectively trapped under her drivesuit that’s still connected to the spinal clamp. Pain is obvious in her features, and Nino feels it because this is Matsumoto’s memory and Matsumoto clearly remembers how her suffering felt like. Nino goes down on his knees, the pain unbearable to feel and to see, but he doesn’t tear his gaze away.

He needs to see this.

He sees Riisa press a closed fist to Matsumoto’s chest as Matsumoto crouches before her in an attempt to haul her away. Their eyes meet and Nino can feel the combined panic and fear in their connection. “I made him a promise,” he hears his twin say, and he sees Matsumoto take her closed fist in his as she hands him something. “I didn’t get to make him a new one, but I did tell Oh-chan to find him when something happens to me.”

Matsumoto shakes his head in fierce denial. “You said we’ve got this so we’re going to make it. We are. I can still activate the escape pod and we’ll make it out together, come on.”

Riisa winces, and Nino can feel the pain shooting from her leg up to the rest of her body. Nino knows she’s not going anywhere, not when her lower half’s already paralyzed. Even if Jun gets her in an escape pod, she won’t go far. “Give that to him,” she says, wincing, her eyes tearing up because of the pain. “He’ll want it back.”

Nino sees it then: the orange, almost black string bracelet he gave her when she left. He’s panting out of sensory overload, but he doesn’t look away as his sister pushes for Matsumoto to go.

The last thing Nino sees is his sister doing the salute he himself is fond of doing before another deafening howl from the kaiju splits the air and suddenly he’s back, standing in the left hemisphere with Matsumoto Jun on his right, Sakurai and Aiba’s panicked voices blaring through the intercoms.

“They’re not ready! We have to shut it down!” he hears Sakurai scream, followed by Aiba’s “Oh no, no, no, Jun-tan!” and he hears Ohno’s voice calling him.

“Find him, Nino,” Ohno orders through the intercom, his voice hard. “Find him before it’s too late.”

It’s then Nino realizes that Matsumoto’s too far gone, and he shuts his eyes in an attempt to haul back his co-pilot to reality. Matsumoto’s somewhere in his memories, but unlike him who managed to haul himself away in time, Matsumoto’s trapped and is thrown out of alignment.

It’s up to Nino to find him. It’s his head after all. He thinks he can navigate it in record time no matter how screwed up it is. He just hopes he has more than enough time before Matsumoto unconsciously charges a missile launcher to full power as a reaction to whatever he sees.

Nino finds Matsumoto looking at him and Riisa, back when he had a guitar case over his back and he talked about his aspirations to pursue his passions, back when he held her face in his hands and kissed her forehead goodbye, telling her that this was something he had to do. Matsumoto is watching him leaving his sister for the first time, and Nino feels like he swallowed fire because of how his guilt manifests.

He had it all wrong after all. Vengeance is not an open wound because nothing is coming to get him. He’s the one setting himself up for all the ugly things. He’s the one transforming himself into live bait for all his demons to feast upon. Nothing out there is coming to get him, and if there’s anything he has to be terrified of, it’s himself.

Before he can stop Matsumoto, the scenery shifts, and this time they’re in the same room he and Riisa shared in Shimane. Nino sees himself looking at his own reflection and he watches himself punching the mirror in anger and frustration, leaving tiny shards which cut his knuckles deeply. Nino remembers this. This is the time after he learned of her death, and ever since then he avoided looking at the mirror out of fear and guilt. The cuts on his knuckles have faded over time, but as Matsumoto revisits this memory, Nino feels the steady trickling of his blood, painting the ground red in little drops of thick, almost velvety iron.

He doesn’t register the pain and the memory shifts again, this time to show the last time he saw his sister alive. He watches as Matsumoto takes in the memory, how Nino hands over the string bracelet for good luck along with his hopes and the things he never had the chance to say. Nino hates this memory because his regret here is so palpable and to feel it once more is something he didn’t know to be possible.

It’s always worse the second time around, and he proves it when he himself unconsciously reaches out to stop Riisa from leaving. Nino catches himself in time, shaking his head and reminding himself that this is just a memory.

“Matsumoto,” Nino calls out as he tries to ignore the pangs of remorse coursing through his veins. Matsumoto doesn’t budge, and Nino tries again to no avail. He catches Matsumoto’s hands trembling as he sees himself hand over the necklace, and Matsumoto’s hands clench to fists when Riisa makes a salute as a form of goodbye.

“Jun,” Nino says firmly, and he sees Matsumoto’s shoulders tense in response. “It’s not real. It’s just a memory. Snap out of it.”

The next time Nino blinks, he’s back with Aiba’s rather shrill voice ringing through the intercom, only to be silenced by Ohno’s calm declaration that everything is under control.

Nino exhales, feeling the dryness of his throat as he tries to speak. “Did I get to missile-launcher Aiba?” he asks, panting, and he hears Ohno’s quiet huffs of laughter along with Sakurai’s whiny exclamation of “Don’t joke around, Ninomiya! We almost lost you two in there!”

“But you didn’t,” comes Matsumoto’s hoarse croak, and Nino can feel another presence in his head, but it doesn’t feel intrusive in any way. He senses Matsumoto’s gratitude through the meld and doesn’t find it misplaced nor a form of mockery. Nino simply accepts it with a nod.

He’s flooded by immense relief, though it’s hard to determine if it’s his own relief or Matsumoto’s, or both of them feeling it. Whatever the case, Nino doesn’t let it bother him anymore. He has done it. He has drifted and come back in one piece despite his lack of trust in Matsumoto.

Nino turns to his right, addressing Matsumoto for the first time after they have achieved drift compatibility. “You were a cute kid,” he says quietly, and he can feel Matsumoto’s immediate shock followed by embarrassment through the link, making him laugh a little. “Nice, incredibly thick eyebrows included. But all the girls in kindergarten gave you chocolates on Valentine’s? Really?”

Matsumoto doesn’t say anything and Nino lets out little huffs of amusement as he feels his co-pilot’s embarrassment. He can’t see it clearly because of the relay gel coloring their helmets yellow, but he thinks Matsumoto’s face is flushing.

“Save the flirting for later, please,” Sakurai says, ever the party pooper, and Nino rolls his eyes. “We’re now going to test exactly how capable you two are of making her move, but try not to release any firearms at us. We just want to see if you two can use the Sentinel’s weapons and activate them at the right time.”

Ohno directs via the communications and he and Matsumoto move accordingly, activating different kinds of weaponry from plasma cannons to plasmacasters and Aiba’s favorites, the missile launchers. It takes two to tango, and when Nino starts to get the hang of activating different features in the Sentinel without putting too much thought on it, he can feel Matsumoto’s relief washing over him.

Sooner or later Nino knows he and Matsumoto will have to talk over the memories of his sister's final moments he has seen in Matsumoto's head, but it will have to wait, for Ohno was right about them having no time at all.

The alarms sound just as they’re beginning to wrap up, and suddenly Nino hears Ohno’s order for them not to strip down their drivesuits and come back up to the control room. A category III from the seas strikes Ishikawa, and they’re asking three of the five Jaegers in the Osaka Shatterdome to standby for a drop-off.

“Who goes?” Jun asks, and by this time Nino has grown comfortable enough to the man’s presence inside his head that he’s now Jun instead of Matsumoto.

It’s Aiba who responds. “They’re not sending you in, but Leader wants you on standby in case another place gets attacked. They’re making Diablo go, with Cruiser and Inferno for back-up. You guys and Thunderbolt are on standby.”

“Roger that,” Nino says, taking off his helmet and detaching himself from the clamp, following Jun’s heavy footsteps as they proceed inside the control room where Ohno, Sakurai, and Aiba are along with the rest of the Shatterdome’s staff. There are engineers and programmers panicking to the side, a couple of mission controllers on full alert as the rest of them watch the proceedings of the mission on the screen.

Jun stands on his right the whole time, and somehow, even if they’re no longer connected to each other, Nino feels like he’s not alone after so many years of believing so.

\--

Whatever struck Ishikawa was taken down by the Whiskey Diablo sustaining only minimal damage, and so Nino, along with Jun as his co-pilot, continue their training as plans to reclaim Niigata push through. He learns how to match his movements and thought patterns with Jun’s, and they spend most of their time sparring in the combat halls when they’re not doing drifts.

Nino also finds out that Jun is serious about training more than anyone else. He pushes Nino to his limits, asking Nino to do quick maneuvers, and when Nino does them perfectly, Jun asks him to do it again. Jun’s strict, sometimes unrelenting, but he’s not heartless. All the time Nino spends on finding out more about Jun, Jun uses to find out about him in equal measure.

Nino notices differences regarding his and Jun’s movements despite their compatibility. While he favors spontaneity and calls it originality, Jun’s movements are precise and fluid in their execution, even well-planned out at times. It makes him the perfect sparring partner for Nino. He views Jun’s combat stance as a wall that needs a bit of tinkering for him to find the little cracks in. It makes Nino wonder how he came to be drift compatible with someone as uptight and as contrasting as Jun because Jun is frequently too critical regarding Nino’s movements, but Nino supposes Riisa’s the person to blame for that. He just happened to be her twin.

Ever since Nino found out the truth about his sister, how it was her choice and how she used the last bit of her strength to assure Jun to go, he’s managed to slowly let go of his initial reservations towards Jun. He doesn’t blame Jun anymore, not after what he saw. He trusts Jun to a certain extent and finds his presence comforting unlike before, but they are yet to talk about Riisa.

They end up talking about the memories when Jun invites Nino to his room. Nino gets a new room after being assigned as one of the rangers for Storm Sentinel, and he’s still adjusting in his new, mostly empty quarters. Jun’s, however, is unlike his. While his is mostly space, Jun’s room hardly has any.

There are different newspaper clippings taped to the wall on their far right, and when Nino squints his eyes to scan them, they’re all news about the kaiju from the first wave of eight years ago to the present, or whatever present news Jun can get his hands on. There are pieces of a worn-out drivesuit piled atop a nearby desk, and the chair in front of the desk has a small pile of different victory posters from different countries featuring different Jaegers, some still active, some decommissioned, and some destroyed.

In his past drifts with Jun, he found out about Jun’s desire to assist the program in any way he could ever since it had been approved. Jun had been carefully following mankind’s progress to form a resistance against the alien attacks, so it wasn’t a surprise that he decided to become a part of it the moment they opened it for volunteers. Jun was too much like Riisa in that aspect, and sometimes, Nino feels as if Jun is the brother, not him.

Today, he feels it again as he stands in Jun’s room, taking in Jun’s world for the first time.

Jun sits on the bed, his hands on his lap as he looks at Nino expectantly. Nino has been inside his head for too many times to not know that Jun’s nervous, and Nino kind of likes looking at him like this because it’s so different from when they’re in the Sentinel’s Conn-Pod or in the combat halls. In those places, Jun becomes Matsumoto Jun, co-pilot of the Storm Sentinel with a record of forty-five drops and forty-five kills along with two years of piloting experience under his name.

In this room, he becomes Jun, not too different from the kid who got hit by a truck on accident but apologized and claimed the mistake as his own. In times like this, when there’s so much uncertainty and fear evident in Jun, Nino chooses to say something first.

“You dropped to thirty-six when you came back here,” is what Nino says, and Jun looks at him, waiting. Nino can see in Jun’s eyes that Jun knows where this conversation is going, but Jun has always been stubborn and Nino knows he won’t address the thing himself. “From forty-five to thirty-six. That’s quite a lot. Am I to blame for that?”

He knows that Jun did the simulation after the first time they sparred in the combat halls, and whatever Nino said at that time must have affected him greatly that it extended to his performance. And yet, he never felt any form of hate or contempt from Jun in any of their drifts. An emotion as strong as that can be felt through whatever link they share given that they’re compatible, but not once did Nino feel any negativities from Jun.

Jun shakes his head. “That’s my own miss.”

“Bullshit,” Nino scoffs. He’s been in Jun’s brain long enough to know when Jun’s lying or hiding something. “A ranger doesn’t simply lose touch despite three years of inactivity. I’ve seen it in your head, in the way you move in combat hall. But for you to have a gap of nine in your records means a lot.” He pauses to remove the poster pile from the desk chair and arranges it to face Jun before sitting and crossing his legs. “You never blamed me.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jun insists, his eyes fixed on the raised plating on his floor. It creaks whenever someone puts pressure on it, and Nino watches how Jun steps on the uneven aluminum for a moment only to remove his weight off it again. “I wasn’t in the place to blame you either, not when you were telling the truth.”

“I was being an asshole to you,” Nino counters immediately. “I said a lot of insensitive things because I was pissed at you, because I spent three years blaming you for something you didn’t even do. You’re too nice for your own good, you know? You can tell me I’m a jerk and you’re well within your rights to do so.”

Jun looks at him then. “But I did let her die,” he murmurs, regret washing over his expressive face. “You were right. I could have saved her. She told me to go and I did, but I could have still tried to haul her away from there. Tried harder. But I didn’t.”

“You couldn’t,” Nino snaps. “There’s a difference. I spent every moment of my life hating my own reflection every time I saw it since she died, spent every second of every thought I spared for her co-pilot in hate. I hated you and I’m not going to deny it. I blamed you, but that’s only because I couldn’t blame myself. I wanted to get even with you at one point. I thought about it.” He lets out a small laugh, completely devoid of mirth. “I thought about what I would do once I met you. It would have been easy if you weren’t the way you are, but when I got inside your head, I found out that you’re the person she saved when she couldn’t be saved anymore. She chose to help till the very end, and I’ve been enough of an idiotic brother to push the blame to that someone she lent a hand to until her death.”

“You’ve seen it in my head,” Jun says quietly, his fingers playing with the material of his loose jeans. “You know I could have done better. I could have tried harder.”

“You also would have died if you did,” Nino responds, giving Jun a look. “If you had died, her death would have been in vain. I would probably be in Fukuoka right now, lifting steel bars and hammering iron plates into place as they got those space shuttles ready even if they don’t know where those will go. I would have probably died once the kaijus had gotten to Fukuoka and I’d have died hating something I know nothing about. Which isn’t fair in any way, because it’s easy to hate something you don’t understand.” Nino reaches over, nervously taking Jun’s hand in his own and finding it warm to the touch, almost welcoming. “But I know better now. My sister saved you, and I know she’d tell me she didn’t regret that if she were here now.”

He squeezes Jun’s hand once before letting go and looking away. “Besides, I kind of need you. I only have simulator experience. I haven’t killed any of those damn things before but sooner or later I will have to, and I can only do that if I’ve got you on my right.”

He hears Jun take a deep breath, and catches a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye which makes him turn. Jun has a hand outstretched, and at the center of his palm lies the string bracelet. “There’s something you didn’t see,” Jun says, reaching for his hand to put the bracelet on his palm. “In my head, I mean. You saw that she gave it to me. You heard what she said. But you didn’t get to see what happened after because my memories of it are disjointed. So let me tell you.” Jun doesn’t let go, his hand over Nino’s now closed fist and Nino waits.

Jun looks up, meeting his eyes. “She wanted me to tell you she was sorry she didn’t get to make a new one or return this herself,” Jun tells him carefully, and Nino has to close to his eyes to collect himself. “She also wanted you to know that she didn’t hate you for leaving, that she understood. It was her last thought. I was connected to her throughout that, before she forcefully disconnected me and fired a plasma cannon to buy me some time.”

Nino clenches his fist, feeling the thin straps of bound thread against his skin. He bites his lip to prevent himself from getting emotional; it’s been a long time since he let himself go and gave in to the emotions concerning his sister. He’s thankful he’s not connected to Jun at the moment because he’s feeling too overwhelmed. He’s proud of Riisa, even prouder if that’s still possible, and yet he’s also appalled by her selflessness that extended not only to Jun but also to him, despite him being so far away.

He long wondered if she hated him for leaving and for not showing his face as the years went on. He always regretted not asking her himself, but now that he has his answers, he regrets not being able to express just how sorry he was, how sorry he still is.

“I never got to tell her,” he whispers, but he knows Jun can hear him. He keeps his eyes shut, but he feels Jun holding onto his hand. It’s reassuring at least, to know that he’s not alone and he has someone he can tell this to, someone who undoubtedly understands, having been inside Riisa’s head and his. “I never got to properly say how sorry I was. I shouldn’t have left. I should have done a lot of things and that included not leaving her alone. But I did and even though I know now she never hated me for it, I’m still sorry I didn’t get to tell her these things myself when I had the chance.”

He feels Jun shifting his grip to clutch at his wrist, Jun’s thumb rubbing soothing circles on the skin. “In the end,” Nino says, and somehow a bitter laugh manages to escape him, “I’m the idiot who blamed you for things that were actually my fault.” He opens his eyes, looking into Jun’s very brown ones. “I’m sorry, Jun-kun. I’m older than her but she was far braver than I’ll ever be. But I need you to know. I need to tell you how sorry I am. For what I said, for everything, for all the time I spent pushing the blame on you.”

Jun shakes his head, a small smile on his lips. He looks accepting, in line with the welcoming warmth his touch generates on Nino’s skin. “I depended on her,” Jun admits, and Nino listens. “She was really strong. Brave. Could carry herself and other people at the same time. I depended on her greatly. Even until the end. You say you’re not as brave as her, but neither am I. I get scared, Nino. Even now. Every time I stepped inside the cockpit, I got scared, and I depended on her for too many times. I thought if she could do it, I could do it too. We could do it together.” Jun sighs, looking down. “In the end, I lost a co-pilot and you lost a sister. We’re both never the same after.”

Nino pulls away from Jun’s grip on his wrist to take Jun’s hand in his, Jun’s fingers against his palm along with Riisa’s string bracelet. “You’ve seen me at my worst,” Nino says, smiling a little. “My head, along with the ugly things that came with it. I depended on her too. I wouldn’t be here if she didn’t ask Ohno to find me. She was looking out for me the whole time, in the same way she was looking out for you.” Nino pauses for a moment, searching Jun’s eyes. “And I think she’d ask me to do the same if she was here. I’m your left, Jun-kun. And if we make it out, if there’ll ever be a chance that all this will be over, remind me to return to Katsushika to build something in her memory.”

Riisa never had a gravestone because there was never a body, but Nino thinks it’s the thought that counts. “Okay. I can do that,” Jun promises, and when Jun smiles at him, Nino thanks his sister in his heart for believing in him.

\--

He and Jun are sent as back-up for Whiskey Diablo when the plans to reclaim Niigata are put in motion, and he finds himself patrolling the surrounding area with Jun as they keep an eye out. The kaiju occupying Niigata is a category IV, similar to the one that killed Riisa and damaged the Sentinel, and the higher-ups are sending the Diablo in because it’s the only Mark V Jaeger in Japan.

Over time, Nino discovers that Jun is easy to embarrass, that it won’t take much effort on his part to make Jun laugh sheepishly, so to keep themselves entertained as they scan the area, he maintains a conversation with Jun and tries to make his imagination more creative, knowing Jun can see what goes on in his head.

“Did you really get all those chocolates?” he asks as they trek slowly, a blanket of fog preventing full visibility. Nino makes sure he’s hyperaware of any form of movement despite the city being dead silent. There’s a kaiju lurking somewhere, but where it is exactly is something they’re all about to find out. The scanners back in the Shatterdome couldn’t pinpoint its exact location given the frequent seismic activities throwing all sensors off.

Jun lets out a tiny laugh. “I was a popular kid,” he explains as the Sentinel walks over a now ruined bridge, with large blocks of concrete remaining embedded in the bottom of the river. “I call that my glory days.”

“Was,” Nino repeats as he tries to peer through the fog. “I bet I was more popular than you ever were. I didn’t get all the chocolates from all the girls in my class, but I’m good-looking enough to warrant a few admirers, all right.”

He can feel Jun roll his eyes at the statement and he chuckles a bit. “They probably just like your music-playing,” Jun says, clearly remembering Nino’s memories from his guitar-strumming days. “They like it so much that they tolerate your face.”

Nino snorts as the Sentinel continues onward, the Diablo and the Thunderbolt walking in front of them. “So you do admit it, I’m pretty talented. Hah! Got a lot of ladies screaming for me in my glory days, Matsumoto, I’ll have you know.”

He hears Jun sigh, and Nino can imagine his co-pilot’s face. “Whatever,” Jun says dismissively as they reach rubbles left by destroyed apartment buildings. There’s even a shattered billboard for Nissin on Nino’s left, a small portion of its LED display still functioning and blinking at odd intervals. “Still not enough to get you all the chocolates.”

Nino turns his gaze away from the once-advertisement for cup noodles, straining his ears for any sign of movement. Niigata’s too quiet and they’re all on high alert, but they’ve been walking for a while now and surely, whatever’s waiting for them already knows they’re here. “What,” he says, knowing that Jun is listening as much as Jun is observing as carefully as he is, “you ever returned any on White Day?”

Before Jun can reply however, Kamenashi, one of the co-pilots of the Whiskey Diablo, uses the comms to warn them all with a loud exclaim of “Incoming!”

Through the fog, Nino manages to see it still. It’s the first kaiju he has ever seen inside a Jaeger, and it’s in the same category as the one that killed his sister. It has three horns and a spiked, scaly trail, looking like a komodo dragon and godzilla hybrid. It possesses shiny, almost metallic skin made up of large scales, and when it roars, Nino watches as the scales quiver before rising up like the spines of a hedgehog on guard.

He senses the influx of Jun’s thoughts— Jun focuses immediately on the movement of the kaiju’s tail and how it contributes to the strength of the attacks it inflicts upon the Diablo, how its movements are impactful enough to make up for its lack of agility. Nino uses the comms to ask the Diablo’s pilots if they need them to step in, but they refuse, assuring them they can handle it.

“I don’t like this,” Nino says as they watch the Diablo load up its missile launcher and aim at the kaiju’s head. “I don’t like standing here and watching as they get pummelled.”

“We don’t engage,” Jun says, darting a quick glance to the other Jaeger, Sierra Thunderbolt, standing to their left. “Not unless they’re in serious trouble. It could be a trap. This one might just be the bait, and once we engage, there might be more out there waiting for us.”

A burst of static pierces through the air and Nino hears the telltale voice of Aiba, who’s obviously listening in and watching them through the Shatterdome’s screens. “Jun-tan’s right, Nino. You’re there in case more of them appear out of nowhere. For all we know Niigata may have become a nest.”

“I’ll hit you,” Jun says to Aiba. “When we come back, remind me to hit him,” Jun tells him, and Nino grins. “He keeps calling me Jun-tan.”

“That’s not so bad,” Nino says, his senses on high-alert despite the light mood he and Jun are trying so hard to maintain to keep their cool. “I would have called you Jun-pon.”

The kaiju’s tail suddenly lashes out like a whip, doing one sweep that sends the Diablo to its feet, and he and Jun are charging their plasma cannon on instinct, aiming it at the creature’s side. So much for not engaging, Nino thinks, and he feels Jun agree.

“Think it’s vulnerable?” he asks Jun, pertaining to the shiny scales. He has played enough games to know that scales like that are as hard as a dragon’s, although there are no dragons in this life so Nino doesn’t know how hard they are exactly.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Jun says as they lock and fire, stopping the incoming blow to the Diablo and buying them time to get to their feet. “Nope, not vulnerable,” Jun murmurs as the kaiju turns to them instead, “but certainly enough to get his attention.”

Nino uses the comms to address the other two Jaegers with them. “Find a weak spot. When you guys think you have a shot, take it. Jun-pon and I will play with this thing for a while, keep it distracted. But if you think we’re getting our asses handed to us, fire those missiles.”

“‘Jun-pon’?” Jun asks as the kaiju roars, and the two of them assume battle stance reflexively, both hands clenched into fists, one foot behind the other for support, their weights balanced on their heels.

Nino smirks as the creature lunges for them, and he and Jun move at the same time to do a sidestep before aiming an elbow jab to the kaiju’s side, the same spot they hit with the Sentinel’s plasma cannon from earlier. Nino can feel the toughness of its skin, almost impenetrable, but there’s a bit of almost gooey softness beyond the thick skin that tells him this thing might not be as invincible as it looks like.

He and Jun flex their left arms at the same time to block an incoming swish of the tail, but they both underestimated the strength of its impact as the blow hit, making the Sentinel skid and the both of them wince. “Okay,” Nino acknowledges, cracking his neck joints a little, “nothing like Aiba’s simulations, all right. Aiba, you need to level up.”

Whatever Aiba says in reply is lost through the comms as the kaiju pounces on them, sending him and Jun tumbling over a mountain of crushed concrete and metal scaffoldings. They swing their right arms hard when the kaiju tries to bite the Sentinel’s head off, making its jaw clench tightly shut. It has long pointed teeth, each the size of a large metal water tank, and Nino’s a bit thankful that set of teeth didn’t get to bite them.

They deliver sets of punches and jabs to the kaiju’s neck, hearing the Diablo and the Thunderbolt load their missiles as they get into position. He and Jun try to keep the beast in place, holding its thrashing head in the Sentinel’s hands and keeping its mouth shut. It might try to spit acid on them or it might have a ridiculously long tongue that can wrap around the Sentinel’s neck and separate its head from the shoulders.

He hears Jun’s laughter on his right. “Ridiculously long tongue,” Jun repeats, clearly amused by the thoughts going on in Nino’s head.

“I’ve never fought any of these bastards before so I don’t know what to expect,” Nino says defensively as the two Jaegers on their side launch their missiles, effectively sending the kaiju to the ground. Its sides are now blown up and blackening, but there’s luminescent kaiju blood and goo oozing out of its wounds.

“Goo,” Jun repeats, still laughing, and Nino rolls his eyes. “They teach kaiju science in officer training, don’t they?”

“Is this going to be a pattern? You repeating my thoughts and laughing at them? And seriously, do I look like someone who’d memorize the anatomy of these monsters when our job is to simply kick their asses?” he asks, shooting Jun a look. He has no doubt Jun knows exactly what to call whatever’s oozing out of what they just killed, but he honestly doesn’t care, not when they somehow managed to subdue a category IV when he can hardly see anything through this fog.

A tail suddenly lashes out, sending the Thunderbolt flying, followed by the Diablo, and they turn just in time to see the monster rising to its feet to let out a deafening roar. It’s limping because of the damage to its sides, but those are apparently not enough to kill it.

Nino extends his left hand out of instinct, immediately activating the sword attached to the Sentinel’s left arm. They have no time to charge the plasma cannon or load any of the missiles, and he and Jun swing at the same time to cut off the beast’s head just as it lunges for them. It’s a clean, cauterized slice that leaves him and Jun to watch the head bounce twice before rolling a little to their right.

“Any more?” Kato from the Thunderbolt asks, and Nino hears Jun's sigh of relief, but also fatigue.

“I hope not. Aiba, can you do a sweep?” Jun asks through the comms, and they wait for a few moments after hearing Aiba’s enthusiastic “Roger!”

“One category III incoming from your one o’clock, guys,” Aiba says, and the Diablo engages, its missile already locked and loaded. He and Jun assume standby position as the Thunderbolt stands on guard in front of them.

Nino has just killed his first kaiju, and he thinks he would name it Yoshi Gone Wild if anyone ever asks for his input. He can feel Jun’s amusement through the drift and he looks to his side just in time to see Jun’s shoulders shaking from laughter.

“What?” Nino asks as the Diablo confirms the death of the new arrival by firing its plasma cannon on its head thrice, “You think it’s a bad name?”

Jun shakes his head just as Ohno’s voice cuts through the comms and congratulates them for a job well done. “No,” Jun says, and Nino can feel his honesty through the meld they share, “I think it’s a great one, actually.”


	3. Chapter 3

The Shatterdome celebrates their victory as the higher-ups declare Niigata as part of the prefectures now back in the hands of the nation. Nino isn’t much for attention, but he admits that all the appreciative smiles and joyous cheers he hears (some shout his name and Jun’s, some go for the Sentinel) help uplift the mood as he makes his way to Sakurai’s office for psych eval.

The moment Sakurai opens his door, Nino immediately raises his hands in surrender. He’s still in his drivesuit, though he already deposited his helmet with a drivesuit technician earlier when he and Jun got back from decontamination. Jun is somewhere with Aiba, already discussing some possible reinforcements to the Sentinel’s chest armor and adding a coolant fuse somewhere to her weaponry, but Nino knows that after his session with Sakurai, it’s going to be Jun’s turn.

Sakurai’s job is not as simple as Nino made it out to be some months ago. It’s his duty to make sure that rangers are coming back in one piece mentally and are able to put on their drivesuits the next time they’re asked to. Nino has just come back from his first field experience, and while it did turn out to be another victory for the nation, he still feels incredibly overwhelmed by the experience.

“You have to admit, Sho-yan,” Nino says, making Sakurai roll his eyes, “I kicked some ass back there.” He grins, loving every second of Sho’s reactions. He only calls the analyst Sho-yan when he’s feeling particularly good about himself, like now.

“Yes, yes,” Sho says dismissively, already asking him to lie down as Sho maneuvers some equipment for quick brain scans, “though I have to say, you still need to learn what it means to not engage.”

Nino scoffs as the monitor on his side shows readouts and highlights certain areas of his brain, and Sho flicks a finger to turn it to a holographic imagery. “If we hadn’t engaged, you guys would have been repairing three Jaegers instead of one.” The Diablo suffered a bit of damage from Yoshi Gone Wild, but it was deemed fixable in a week or two by the technicians and engineers.

Sho gives him the clear for active duty and Nino jumps off the cushions of the medical bed. “Don’t grow too complacent, Nino,” Sho warns, and he sounds so much like an older brother that it makes Nino cock an eyebrow. “We won today, yes, but we still don’t know what’s out there. We just got word that Tokyo is a hive when the air force did a government-ordered aerial sweep.”

Nino narrows his eyes, wondering if Jun already knows about this. “So, the surrounding prefectures are heavily infested by kaiju,” he says carefully, and Sho nods. “Why would they congregate in one place? You think they’re protecting something?”

Sho looks behind him, and Nino turns just in time to see Jun leaning against the doorframe of Sho’s office, his eyes as serious as ever. “Or they could be luring us to destroy all our Jaegers once and for all,” Jun says, the earlier elation from their victory mostly gone from his face. “It might be a trap. Today’s win might also be a trap, to make us believe we’re pushing them back when we’re probably not even close to it.”

Nino hates it, but Jun speaks the truth and he knows it as much as Sho does. Sho sighs, raising both hands. “I’m not exactly in the position to dispel theories and offer my input,” he says, already stepping aside and extending a hand towards the medical bed. “I’m just the brain scan dude, after all.”

Jun enters the room to sit on the bed and to allow Sho’s machines to latch themselves in different parts of his head. “You ever tried scanning kaiju brain with your machines, Sho-san?” Jun asks as the monotonous computer voice announces Jun’s ranger number like it did with Nino earlier.

Nino doesn’t feel like he’s intruding, in fact, Jun shoots him a glance that tells him not to go anywhere and he obliges, making himself comfortable in Sho’s office as he watches Sho shuffle about and tinker with his different monitors and input some data into his clipboard.

Sho suddenly grins at Jun’s question, like he’s the one who actually subdued a category IV and Nino finds a side to Sho that he likes. “Well,” Sho says, taking off his absurd-looking rounded glasses, “who do you guys think was responsible for the term ‘hive’?”

\--

After two days of celebration all over the Shatterdome, he and Jun finds themselves in a meeting with all the other active rangers and Shatterdome officials, the proceedings and discussions they’re having being relayed to the higher-ups via conference holo. This is the part Nino dislikes, if he’s going to be honest. He’s okay with the training, the combat room, the drifting, even the part where they fight the kaiju. What he hates is the politics that’s bound to come after, and how he immediately becomes a part of it after Niigata.

“How many times did you sit in this room and watch those old men bicker amongst themselves when they’re not even the ones risking their lives?” he whispers to Jun who’s sitting on his right, and the corner of Jun’s lips turn up.

“Too many,” Jun whispers back, and Nino can tell from his body language that he’s as annoyed as Nino himself is. Nino likes that he doesn’t need to be connected to Jun to know, that he just knows. “Your sister hated this part too. She would chew gum and pop it loudly once the old men stopped talking.”

Nino tries not to laugh, but he can imagine it too clearly. It’s something he might be inclined to do provided he can get chewing gum somewhere around here. He makes a mental note to check the cafeteria next time there’s a meeting like this.

“Do we really need to watch them talk over each other as they figure out whether they want Tokyo back or not?” Nino asks out of the corner of his mouth when one man from the Defense Corps begins throwing around accusations to the other members of the conference. “I mean, we all know they want Tokyo back so is this part really necessary? Why don’t we just get to the part where we actually plan the plan?”

“Because we’re the ones fighting this war, not them,” Jun tells him, his eyes slightly narrowed, and Nino resolves to cross his arms over his chest as he eyes the scene with a bored expression.

“Gentlemen,” Ohno’s calm voice calls out, and Nino has no idea how he did it, but that one word from the small man managed to silence the ongoing arguments, “as you’ve all been informed by Air Force, Tokyo has become a nest. This Shatterdome did a preliminary sweep in the area using our scanners and we have determined three category V kaijus in Sumida, as well as kaijus of lower categories in surrounding areas. My colleague Sakurai here calls Tokyo a hive.”

One bearded man from the holo screen frowns at Ohno’s statement. “The Air Force refer to it as a nest and we agree with them. What’s the difference between our term and yours?”

Nino can see Ohno smiling before the fightmaster shakes his head. “Not mine,” Ohno says, stepping aside to give Sho the floor, “his. He’ll be more suited to answer your questions, I believe.”

“Okay, this part I like,” Nino whispers to Jun as they both watch Sho take Ohno’s place. Sho has his weird glasses back on, amplifying the roundness of his face, and Nino thinks the old geezers won’t take him seriously unless he says the right words. Somehow, he finds himself cheering for Sho inwardly, hoping that the guy won’t screw this up.

The bearded official onscreen turns to Sho, his eyebrow raised in obvious doubt regarding Sho’s capabilities. The ugly side of politics, Nino discovers, is that whoever has the power believes he has no time to listen to the input of someone he already deemed to be lower than him. Nino hates the guy already, knowing that while he’s risking his life along with his fellow rangers, this man is hiding in a safehouse in a confidential location, waiting for a chance to bark orders, knowing that the chances of those disobeyed were very low given his standing in the government.

But before the man can open his mouth, Sho speaks up. “I called it a hive, sir,” he begins, and Nino wants to applaud him for the sarcasm rich in his voice but he restrains himself, “because they’re congregating in Sumida for reasons unknown. We have never seen kaijus as high as category V assemble in one place before. I believe they’re there because something needs them to be there.”

“Something?” the man asks, still looking skeptical, “Clarify, Sakurai-san. We have no time for theories, not when kaiju activities all over the globe are increasing in frequency. Japan is not the only nation suffering at the hands of these monsters. We act in solidarity as we take a stand to fight for our future, and we have no time to listen to the ramblings of one analyst from Osaka.”

Nino sees Sho tilt his head at the statement. “Of course. Forgive me, I wouldn’t presume to know of the world affairs, not when those monsters are knocking at our doors every now and then and the war is happening right here.”

Nino would give it to Sho, the analyst knows how to keep his temper in check and mask it with humility, but he also knows how to remind people that he knows what he’s talking about judging from the way he speaks, and Nino’s respect for him increases because of it. Sho continues, his voice as even as before, “I believe the category V’s are there because they’re acting as bodyguards.”

That gets the higher-ups riled up, and soon enough there’s a barrage of one voice after another, something Nino rolls his eyes at for the predictability of it. He leans a little to his right for Jun to hear him. “Is Sho-chan this badass every time there’s a meeting like this? I should have signed up earlier if that was the case; this feels like something I should have seen ages ago.”

Jun grins. “He never had to speak up in the past because we never reached something like this before. But better late than never, right? I think beard guy is already pissed at him for being such a smartass.”

“Beard guy’s about to get hell from Sho-chan,” Nino says proudly, smiling wider.

“With all due respect,” Sho says, his voice loud enough to silence the already bickering officials, “I believe they’re protecting something that’s in Sumida. I have no idea what exactly, but I wouldn’t call it a hive if I didn’t have an inkling or two.”

Nino’s eyes narrow, and he sees the rest of the rangers straighten in their seats. He feels Jun nudging him with an elbow, and he leans a little to the side to hear what Jun has to say.

“A mother,” Jun whispers, and it’s exactly the same thing Nino’s thinking of. Sho’s talking about the primary component in a thriving hive, a queen. Nino has played too many games in the past to know that Sho’s theory has some merit.

“If you have doubts,” Sho continues as he scans his clipboard, “and I’m sure do, I will have you know that as an analyst, I asked for the brain scans of a kaiju subdued in Australia. The results of which were forwarded to me, and I compared them to the past brain scans I oversaw myself with my own team here. The brains had one thing in common, a connective tissue which functions as a sensor and a relay organ for transmitted messages. The method eludes me still; I assume it’s part of the things we still don’t know about the kaiju, but it allows them to communicate to something that’s not in the same area.”

One of the officials on screen, a bald man with thick eyebrows, speaks up. “You’re saying they’re using that part of their brain to communicate with a mother? A queen, a leader of sorts that commands them? This is like saying you believe the kaiju are civilized enough to have a system.”

All eyes in the room are on Sho now, and Nino watches as the analyst removes his glasses to wipe them using his lab coat. Nino smirks. For all the reminders that the higher-ups have no time, now that Sho has their attention, he’s obviously milking it for what’s it worth.

That decides it. Nino likes Sho, and he likes Sho a lot for his cheek.

Sho puts his glasses back on, pushing the frames up the bridge of his nose. “They are civilized enough to have a system,” Sho declares, full of confidence. “And a highly advanced system at that. Our recent victory in Niigata proves it. Once the category IV was subdued, a category III appeared in the same area in a matter of minutes. Of course there’s a chance that that category III just happened to be lurking in the right place at the right time, but what were the odds? If we assume that all attacks happening around the globe are predetermined, planned by something of a higher level than those we can categorize in our scales and detect in our scanners, then we can only assume that their plan to dominate Earth entirely is carefully thought out, beginning from the first wave.”

Nino feels Jun tense at his right. “If he’s saying what I think he’s saying,” Jun begins, and Nino finishes it for him, “then you might be right about that claim from two days ago, that they’re simply letting us win because it was all part of their plan.”

“Well shit,” Jun says, shaking his head once. “We’re up for something far bigger than expected.”

Nino can only smile as Sho continues proving his point to those in higher positions. “No kidding,” he says, meeting Ohno’s eyes across the room. “I hope I’m ready for this.”

\--

He is, in fact, not ready.

It took three days of endless bickering and laying out of proposals before the old men in authority decided on a plan, and it took Nino two more days to learn about it because he and Jun had to fight a category II that surfaced in Shizuoka.

Drifting with Jun had become something comfortable for Nino that they were able to kill the kaiju with no problem, but Nino wishes that the plan the officials decided on was as easy to execute as pummelling a category II to the ground because it wasn’t.

“You all know your geography,” Ohno says during another planning meeting. “But in case someone needs reminding, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, and Yamanashi are the areas surrounding Tokyo. The drop-off is Shizuoka. From Shizuoka, the first step is to reclaim Kanagawa. We’re sending the Inferno for that, with Cruiser and Sentinel for backup. Diablo and Thunderbolt, you guys are on standby. If the Kanagawa mission is successful, we’re dropping you guys off at Minato for a meet-up. I’m afraid you all know what happens next.”

“Hunger Games,” Ikuta, the co-pilot of the Vesta Cruiser, says from Nino’s right. “So what, you’re dropping us in the edges of the nest? Hoping we get to Sumida on foot? That’s suicide. And that’s assuming we kill the category IV at Kanagawa and make it to the meet-up.”

Ohno cocks his head. “Fortunately, Korea is sending backup in the form of two Mark III Jaegers which will be dropped off at Koto upon assurance that Kanagawa is reclaimed. That should make seven Jaegers fighting their way to Sumida. The Air Force will be sending in all functional fighter planes, but the most recent aerial sweep done by Air Force showed us that the kaiju are congregating indeed, and they’re doing it faster than expected. Perhaps they’re aware that we noticed something.”

“What, they’re all in Sumida now?” Nino asks, and Ohno nods, looking grim.

“With a few strays consisting of categories I and II in surrounding divisions,” Ohno clarifies.

Nino runs his hands down his face. The plan is simple: get to Sumida and nuke it, and provided Sho was right with his theories, they intend to nuke the queen, therefore shutting down all kaiju activity within the area or as far as the queen’s reach is. Nino is inclined to believe that Sho’s theory is more than right; they have received recent reports of similar patterns from different places across the globe. Paris, Frankfurt, Reykjavik, Washington, as well as other places Nino didn’t bother to know. If all the rangers in active service manage to kill all the queens at the same time, it might end the war for good.

But the chances of them dying are very high. Tokyo is a hive and the strongest, most resilient of the monsters aggregated in one place. Nino never fought a category V before, and while he and Jun are skilled enough to take down a category II without breaking a sweat and cut off the head of a category IV, Nino believes they’re not ready for something like this.

“Who carries the gold?” Jun asks, pertaining to the bomb. “Someone has to, and if the plan is to protect that Jaeger to make sure they get the bomb in place, then sorry to say, Leader, but I’m with Toma. This is suicide. Even if Korea sends aid, even if other countries send in their Jaegers.”

“You all carry it,” comes the voice of Aiba, who enters the room with Sho in tow. “Sorry we’re late, but Leader sent me to pick up Sho-chan and Sho-chan wouldn’t leave his scans until they were all done. Anyway, you all carry it. I mean, you all have one, the Jaegers all have one inside them.”

It hits Nino then. “The reactors,” he says, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Whoever gets to the damn queen overloads the reactor of their Jaeger. I got to say, that’s original. Nuking the queen by overheating a robot.”

“It’s not the best plan, but it’s a plan,” Sho acknowledges, and Nino notices the lines under his eyes. He probably hasn’t gotten a lot of sleep ever since he heard of the plan.

“It’s still a shitty plan,” Jun declares, earning the nods of the other rangers as well as their murmurs of agreement. “It’s not even that much of a plan. You think we can make it to Sumida, distract three category V’s, overload a reactor and actually live to tell the tale? Doesn’t the government have any nuclear weaponry they can fire from the sky? Should be easier to do.”

“They do, and they just fired it,” Sho informs them, flicking a finger in front of a monitor to show them a holographic map of Japan, where Mukojima is blinking red. “Yesterday, to be specific. It’s exactly why they congregated near Narihira. The target didn’t hit its mark because it couldn’t detect the mother since the sensors were made to detect kaijus, but whatever it hit, it was enough to make them panic. They know we know, and they’re providing the best protection they have because of it.”

“Which makes the divisions surrounding Sumida almost barren,” Aiba supplements. “Just a stray one or two from my scanners, and I’m doing hourly sweeps now. I’ve scanned Sumida and there are seven kaijus there. Three of which, as you know, are category V’s. Two are III’s, one IV, and one II. There’s some baby kaijus detected, but they’re mostly in Koto.”

Nino hears Jun sigh. “Even if you say there are seven of them versus seven of us out there, assuming we all make it, that is, there’s still a chance of us getting beaten into fine paste by a category V,” Jun points out, earning the grim nods of the other rangers. Nino hates the odds and he can feel he’s not alone in that aspect. “And there are three of them so… I don’t know, Aiba, do the math. Worst case scenario will be all of us nuking ourselves at the same time, hoping we’ll get the queen in that range.”

“Assuming there is a queen, of course,” Ikuta adds, earning him a glare from Sho. Ikuta raises his hands in truce. “Sorry, Sho-kun. It’s the nerves. I don’t doubt your brains; you’re the brain that scans all the brains here, even kaiju brain at that, but we don’t have proof that there really is a queen there, transmitting signals to her lesser followers and stuff.”

“We don’t have proof because we don’t have a design that will give us proof,” Sho states, sounding a little irritated. “Our scanners can only detect a congregation of kaiju in one specific place and that is close to Narihira. Whatever’s out there in Sumida, that’s what we need to find out and destroy if we can. It might be our only chance.”

Nino shares a glance with Jun, and he knows Jun will be expecting him in the combat room after this. Best to make the most out of what time they have left. No one likes the plan except those who planned the plan, and sadly, they’re not the ones fighting the actual war. Nino lets out a loud sigh, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“Does the cafeteria serve salisbury?” he asks suddenly, and from his side he can see Jun frown only for him to grin immediately after, catching on to Nino’s meaning immediately. Nino looks at the confused faces of everyone else and smiles. “Might be the last time I get to eat that. I’d rather eat it before I blow myself up with Jun-pon here. I suggest we all do the same.”

“What?” Ikuta asks, slightly laughing now because Nino’s comment has successfully lightened the mood, “Eat salisbury? All of us?”

Nino snorts, already standing up. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, shaking his head, “the cafeteria can’t have that much if they even have any, so if any of you bastards eat it before I do, god forbid I get my hands on a nuclear reactor before you.”

\--

“So we are sticking with the plan,” Nino huffs as he ducks to evade a blow Jun aimed at his temple. “The suicidal plan. Great. If I had known earlier I would have remained in Fukuoka. At least I’d just be smashed under kaiju feet if I die, not blown to bits.”

He swings his staff to an arc, aiming for Jun’s side, but Jun blocks the move with practiced ease. Nino is yet to beat Jun in a sparring session, because while Jun calculates his moves to the point they’re almost always predictable, he manages to lull Nino into a false sense of assurance only to do something completely unforeseen at the last minute.

If Nino didn’t know any better he’d call it underhanded.

“At least you got to eat your favorite food before you get ‘blown to bits’,” Jun tells him, crouching down to strike at Nino’s pelvis, something Nino blocks with his staff positioned under his arm. “I doubt they have salisbury in the Fukuoka shipyards.”

Nino grins at that. “How about you?” he asks, sidestepping a lunge that’s aimed at his throat. “Already ate your favorite croquettes? What were they again, crab cream?”

He can see Jun’s smile before Jun pivots on his heel to land a strike on Nino’s lower back, something Nino blocks by flipping his staff to the side. “You remember more than I expected,” Jun comments in a pleased tone. “Those are good, I tell you.”

Nino twists his trunk to aim for the back of Jun’s knees, something Jun anticipated and avoids with little problem. For all of Nino’s applied spontaneity when fighting, Jun somehow manages to predict his moves accordingly. “I don’t doubt how good they are,” Nino says, shifting his grip on his staff to block a move Jun directed at his shoulder. “Just not my thing. Whatever. Anything else you feel like doing before you die? You know, just to be sure you did it before it all happened.”

He sees Jun’s eyebrows lifting in thought as he rolls over, putting distance between him and his co-pilot. They’re both panting from the exertion, and Jun’s shirt is soaked in sweat as much as Nino’s tank top is. Nino always wondered why Jun never wore tank tops underneath his Shatterdome-issued jumpsuits, but Jun always shrugged whenever he asked the question, insisting that he feels more comfortable wearing something with sleeves.

“See the Louvre,” Jun answers after a moment, and Nino laughs loudly.

“Bit ambitious there, Matsumoto. But I suppose you and I can hijack a fighter plane if we live to tell the tale. We could use a vacation,” Nino says with a smile before assuming his ready stance.

Jun attacks first, aiming for Nino’s chin, but Nino blocks the move with his staff and ducks to aim for Jun’s cheek, stopping as his staff lightly rests against Jun’s skin. This close, Nino can see the scars left by puberty, and he remembers how pubescent Jun looked like, making him grin wider. “Did I ever tell you that you were a cute kid?” he asks, nearly laughing at Jun’s eyes narrowing at the change of topic. “All thick eyebrows and huge grin that could probably rival the sunrise. Real heartbreaker, I bet. I would have given you my chocolates.”

Jun’s response to that is to push his staff away and step back, only for him to lunge again, a move Nino didn’t expect. Nino finds the edge of Jun’s staff slightly poking him under the chin, and Jun smiles.

“That was the first thing you said to me, actually,” Jun reminds him, “that I was a cute kid. Didn’t think you meant it until now, but if you gave me your chocolates, don’t worry. I wouldn’t have the heart to turn down a snotty kid like you back in the day.”

Nino shoves Jun’s staff aside and uses his knee to knock Jun off balance, and Jun hits the ground with a grunt. Before he can move, however, Nino presses the tip of his staff to Jun’s collarbones in warning, a smug grin on his face. “Snotty kid is handing your ass to you now, heartbreaker. Back in the day this would have surely won me some of the die-hards from your team. They’d have switched to Team Ninomiya by now.”

Jun gives him a toothy grin before moving his legs, wrapping them around Nino’s waist to send Nino to the floor, and the impact makes his vision black out for a moment, the wind knocked out of him. Underhanded move that he totally didn’t expect, and he finds himself trapped by Jun’s weight on top of him, the edge of Jun’s staff right in front of his face.

Nino hates to admit it, but Jun wins the round. Again.

“I think you’d find that those in Team Matsumoto are well-taken care of,” Jun states, and Nino rolls his eyes at the cocky grin, “but should you feel inclined to join the club, you’re more than welcome to do so.”

“Fat chance,” Nino says, raising a challenging eyebrow even if he lost. “Just because I let you win doesn’t mean you’re actually winning.” Nino smirks at Jun’s frown, then continues. “For all we know I probably just like your weight on top of me,” he whispers, shooting Jun a haughty grin and moving his hips for emphasis, “and be honest, you like pinning me down like this too.”

Jun gets off him then, turning his back to him, but Nino can see his ears reddening as he gets to his feet. “Asshole,” Jun grumbles, and Nino laughs, placing his staff under his arm.

“And an incredibly charming one at that. Lucky you!” Nino says, already making his way to the racks to deposit his staff. Jun may come out victorious out of all of their sparring sessions, but for Nino, seeing Jun embarrassed and flustered and nothing like the Matsumoto Jun most people in the Shatterdome know, counts as his own personal win.

\--

Nino isn’t shit at geography, but perhaps Sho was right about him growing too complacent because of their recent victories.

Just before “the plan” was put in motion, he and Jun were sent to deal with a category II that surfaced in Toyama, something they did with surprising ease. Surprising because Nino expected the kaijus to be more resilient bastards, and while it did take more than a plasma cannon fired at the right spot for the beast to go down, it wasn’t much of a challenge for them both. It was too much like Aiba’s simulations, and Nino regrets not listening to Jun when Jun pointed it out.

“That one was quick,” Nino commented then, with the both of them looking at smashed kaiju remains at their feet. It had six tails acting as tentacles, and he and Jun had to slice the things neatly before firing a missile down the creature’s throat when it let out a menacing roar.

“No,” Jun rebuffed, his face all serious. “That one was easy.”

Nino didn’t believe him then, but now that they’re in Kanagawa and fighting a category IV after it rendered the Xenon Inferno’s systems critical, Nino realizes that Sho was right about kaijus being civilized enough to have a system, because they are that advanced.

They’re playing with us, Nino thinks, and through the drift, he senses Jun’s disgruntled agreement. Much as Jun likes being right, he also hates being right about things like this.

The beast sends them flying with an unprecedented fierce sweep of its gigantic, spiky tail, and before Nino knows it, they’re out of Kanagawa and in the edges of Yamanashi, the flattened metal sign of the prefecture right in front of their viewscreen as the Sentinel gets sent to its hands and knees.

From here on is Yamanashi Prefecture, the sign reads, and Nino can’t stop his train of thought then. He vaguely hears Jun’s voice beside him, Jun’s frantic calls of his name and telling him to snap out of it. When Nino blinks, he’s back in a stormy night, the hard, unyielding streaks of lightning splitting the inky sky.

He sees Riisa bleeding and paralyzed on the ground, sparks flying over their heads because of snapped circuitry and malfunctioning machinery, bits of metal scattered on the floor of the Sentinel’s cockpit. There’s a hole at the Sentinel’s shoulder and water enters through it, dampening the metal ground near Nino’s feet. He follows the trail of water and sees it mix with thick blood, and he looks up as Riisa presses a closed fist right against Jun’s chest.

She’s heaving, clearly suffering in every second she spends breathing, and Nino goes down on his knees, feeling absolutely worthless as she lies dying. Nino can sense her pain and Jun’s. He can feel how she forces herself to look tough despite Jun knowing it’s all an act on her part. He can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s as if everything became muted and he is there watching it all happen frame-by-frame.

Riisa’s lips are moving, and Nino somehow understands what she says. It sends a wave of nausea in him, his regret and guilt building up, and when he shuts his eyes in desperation, he can almost feel himself tumbling down.

He snaps his eyes open and sees himself carrying a guitar and opening the door to their house in Katsushika, Riisa right on his heels. He’s back, he realizes, to being an ambitious dreamer ready to leave everything aside. Nino wants to scream, wants to tell himself how stupid and selfish he is but he can’t move. He can only stare at his young and clearly inexperienced self being insensitive and stubborn and he has to look away, fighting back the tears stinging at the corner of his eyes.

It’s not real, he tells himself, over and over. It’s not real, it’s just a memory. It’s not real.

But the guilt feels too real, and it comes hand in hand with regret. It tastes like bile coming up his throat, like acid running through his veins, rendering him immobile but sensitive to everything else. He feels absolutely vulnerable, like an utter failure even if it was only moments ago that he heard his sister claim that she didn’t hate him, that she never did. He feels helpless and completely worthless, shaking his head repeatedly to remind himself where he truly is.

The ground shakes and the next thing he sees, he’s in the Sentinel’s cockpit with Jun attached to the right. When he looks around, he sees the left empty, and he sees Jun trying to walk the Jaeger out of the Shatterdome, piloting it on his own.

Nino can feel the neural overload and it’s like having two brains inside his skull, both organs fighting for space and dominance. The pain is searing hot, like someone’s shoved a burning spike up his spine and he cringes, dropping to his knees once more. He’s breathing hard, and in his head he’s counting how many breaths he’s making as he wills himself to look up, seeing Jun almost making it out of the massive Shatterdome doors.

He forces his eyes to remain open even as he tears up, salt clouding his vision. His eyes feel like they’re burning and want to escape out of his sockets. The neural load is too much and he can see Jun’s hands beginning to tremble, Jun wincing at obvious pain he brings voluntarily upon himself. Jun trudges forward anyway, standing right before the Shatterdome doors before another wave of pain flares up through his body, making his eyes roll to the back of his head.

It’s not real, he repeats as he feels tiny pinpricks inside his head, like someone’s yanked him open and decided to play with what they see in there. Not real, I’m not here, I’m in the Sentinel, I’m with Jun. Jun.

Latching on to that thought sends him right back and he opens his eyes to the category IV charging at them as Ikuta’s voice booms through the intercom, saying, “Here it comes!”

Nino raises both arms instinctively and the Sentinel skids as the beast collides with them, its massive horn piercing through the metal. Alarms blare off at once and the Sentinel’s A.I. warns them of a hull breach, indicating the affected areas. The Sentinel’s forearms are damaged, rendering the sword and the missile launchers attached to it unusable.

Nino curses as the kaiju hits the Sentinel’s side with its spiky tail. They go flying, hitting a couple of shattered buildings in the process. There’s no time to look at Jun, not when the kaiju’s charging for them again, and Nino raises his right hand reflexively, praying the plasma cannon will go off at the right time and hit its mark accurately.

They fire thrice, one hitting the creature’s neck, the other two landing on its shoulder. Its blue, luminescent and acidic blood oozes out of its wounds but it charges at them still, and Nino crouches as he braces for impact.

The creature’s body collides with the Sentinel and Nino winces at the combined blow and weight. Somehow, he hears Jun’s order of “hold him!” and he bends both elbows, preventing the kaiju from using its clawed, scaly arms to scratch or swat at their armor and inflict more damage. It thrashes as Jun orders for the Cruiser to fire at it repeatedly, and Nino catches a glimpse of Jun enabling the coolant feature recently added to the Sentinel before Jun releases it on the kaiju’s tail.

The tail freezes and that only seems to make the beast angrier, elbowing the Sentinel hard on the side. Nino loses his grip on the creature, but he makes up for it by picking up an overturned bus and smashing it against the tail, shattering the part to massive crystalline pieces.

That earns them a deafening howl and Nino ducks, seeing Jun do the same as the kaiju whips around and tries to claw the Sentinel’s face off.

“Load the cannon,” Jun says, his voice hoarse and his fatigue obvious. Nino follows wordlessly, charging the two cannons on the Sentinel’s chest. He aims for the creature’s mouth and locks before asking the pilots of Vesta Cruiser to buy them some time.

“On my mark,” Jun begins, and Nino waits for the count as the Cruiser pounces, narrowly avoiding a blow aimed at its neck. Nino keeps his eye on the charger, hearing the Sentinel’s A.I. call out percentages every now and then, and he begs for it to go faster in his head as they hear Ikuta and his co-pilot Oguri struggle through the open comms.

“Now, Nino, fire it now!” Jun screams, and Nino does, releasing the cannons as the Cruiser forces the kaiju’s mouth open, enabling the Sentinel’s cannons to hit its mark. The kaiju’s head gets blown off in the process, sending the Cruiser to its knees behind it as the Sentinel goes down on one knee due to the force of the blast combined with their exhaustion.

The Sentinel’s A.I. warns them of malfunctioning systems, and Jun addresses Ohno over the comms. “We can’t make it to Sumida,” Jun says, and Nino can feel how hard he tries to keep it together. They’re exhausted and the Inferno is in critical condition while the Sentinel and the Cruiser need repairs, most of their weaponry useless and malfunctioning. “We can’t. Not today. Cancel the drop-off. We can’t meet them. You have to postpone.”

Ohno’s agreement is immediate. “Can you move? Do you need us to haul you back?”

“No,” Nino answers, his eyes on the Inferno’s prone form less than a mile before them. “We can carry Inferno back. Cruiser, can you guys move?”

He hears Ikuta and Oguri’s grunts in reply, and he and Jun make their way to the Inferno to put one of its arms over the Sentinel’s shoulders. Soon, the Cruiser joins them, heaving the Inferno’s other arm over its shoulders, and the six of them try to bring themselves back to Osaka on foot despite it being a long walk.

\--

Nino opens his eyes to Sho’s disapproving face looking down at him and he turns to his side, keeping his eyes shut. The last thing he wants to see is Sho’s disappointment, but because his life is series after series of bad luck, it happens to be the first thing he sees upon waking up.

He hears Sho sigh. “Plan is postponed and all functional Jaegers are on standby for any red alerts. The Kanagawa trio, yes, that’s what you guys are called now, are up for repairs, but you and Jun are grounded on Satoshi-kun’s orders.”

That makes Nino’s eyes snap open. He turns back to Sho, wincing at the sudden pain on his shoulder blade. Sho shoots him another disapproving look. “You tore a muscle. Actually, you tore a lot of muscles, even ligaments. But sure, keep moving and injure yourself further. See if I care.”

“You do care,” Nino snaps, shifting on the bed carefully so as not to put any further strain on his body. “You care because you’re here in the infirmary when you have other ranger brains to look after.”

Sho raises an eyebrow but doesn’t rebuff his claim. For a while Nino is just staring at the analyst and his circular frames that would be comical if the situation were different, until he can’t take it anymore. “How’s he?” he asks, shutting his eyes. The pain in his shoulder renders the entirety of his right arm immobile and every shift he does on the bed makes the pain flare up.

“Who knows? He’s probably taking it even better than you are right now,” Sho says, catching on quickly, his voice still as disapproving as before. Nino feels like he’s being scolded right now, though he supposes it’s better that it’s Sho instead of Ohno. Maybe Sho’s preparing him for that. “What happened in there, Nino? We lost you for a moment.”

Nino has to take a deep breath to get the words out. He keeps his eyes shut, not wanting to look at Sho. “I chased the rabbit,” he admits, and he hears Sho snort.

“Obviously. But I’m not the guy you need to talk to about these things,” Sho acknowledges, and Nino can hear him stand up. “You’re not getting inside a Jaeger until you have my approval, and sorry to say but I’m only giving you the clear for light duty. Same with Jun. You guys can beat each other’s asses in the combat halls for all I care, but you’re not putting on a drivesuit anytime soon.”

“And the plan?” Nino asks, eyes snapping open to glare at Sho. “What about the plan? You need all the Jaegers you have for that.”

Sho shoots him a look. He’s almost out of the infirmary, but he turned around to face Nino fully. “You’re right,” Sho says, tilting his head. “We need all the Jaegers we have for that. But we need functional Jaegers and capable pilots for the plan, and sad to say, Nino, you’re neither.”

Sho leaves after that and Nino curses inwardly, thumping his head repeatedly against his pillows. It’s all his fault. He relapsed when he saw Yamanashi, latching on to the memory of his sister’s death and throwing himself and Jun out of alignment. Jun obviously managed to pull himself back but Nino took longer than usual, staying trapped in his and Jun’s memories for too long and compromising not only themselves but also the mission.

Had he stayed a second longer he and Jun would have died.

Now the Sentinel’s up for repairs and he and Jun are grounded on Ohno’s orders. Ohno is well in his right to ground them. If Ohno was here right now, Nino knows he wouldn’t find the strength to say to Ohno’s face that it was a mistake that wouldn’t happen again. Sho was right about him growing too complacent. He grew cocky, confident, and when he least expected it, his ghosts came back for a second haunting with the worst possible timing.

He ended up becoming a liability and dragging Jun down with him and the pain it brings him is so much worse than the pain constantly flaring up in his shoulder. He wishes he could stop feeling because the sensations come flooding all at once: the regret and the guilt over what he had done, the anger and frustration at himself, and the sympathy for Jun and what Jun tried to do.

Somehow, because of his relapse, Nino managed to enter into Jun’s most guarded memories, the memories they were all trained to keep safe in officer training. Nino has his own too, a lingering fear he fiercely protects and is not willing to show to anyone, but since he threw himself and Jun out of alignment despite having a strong connection, he tapped into Jun’s memories without consent and saw something he knows Jun never wanted for him to see.

Jun tried to solo pilot a Jaeger after his sister’s death as a form of penance. It was eventual suicide to try to bear a Jaeger’s neural load on your own but Jun did it knowingly, even making it to the doors of the Shatterdome. Ever since Nino drifted with Jun, he has known of Jun’s guilt over his sister’s sacrifice, even how Jun felt upon seeing his face for the first time.

What he never knew until now was the extent of that guilt and how Jun tried to fight it, only for him to succumb to it in the end. Now Nino understands why Jun never loses the shirt in his presence, why he never wears anything other than a shirt in all their sparring sessions.

Jun has battle scars, physical and unerasable evidence of what he tried to do to atone for his guilt. This was a side of him that Jun never wanted for him to know for obvious reasons, but because of Nino’s miscalculation, Jun’s secret is out in the worst possible manner.

Nino wants to throw up at the onslaught of emotions, finding that he’ll choose physical turmoil over any of this any day. He can handle being tossed and pushed and shoved to the ground, he can take punches and kicks and blows delivered to any part of his body, but for the first time he realizes that he can’t bear the brunt of Jun’s guilt because while he has forgiven Jun over time, Jun still hasn’t forgiven himself.

And Nino doesn’t know how to fix that. He’s incapable of helping the person his sister willingly gave her life for, and it’s as if he’s causing her disappointment as much as he disappointed Jun. He feels worthless and when he turns around to face the consequences of his actions, it’s as if all the ghosts that were chasing after him finally caught up, swallowing him whole without hesitation. It’s as if locking the doors to prevent the ghosts from coming in failed and now they’re crowding him, suffocating him and reminding him that there was no point in running away.

He remains there in one of the infirmary beds, not getting a drop of sleep, thinking of his sister and how in the end, he’s nothing but a failure.

\--

It’s Aiba who gives him the okay to leave the infirmary after two days. Aiba doesn’t necessarily have the authority, but he happens to be very good friends with the Shatterdome doctor, even calling the man “Kazapon” at one point.

Nino departs from the infirmary with bandages wrapped around his torso, and he’s tugging at a loose shirt to cover himself as Aiba’s gentle hand on the small of his back guides him outside. Aiba’s presence is comforting because Nino never heard any form of judgment from Aiba when he showed up in the infirmary. There was no disappointment in his eyes, just the usual jovial Aiba whom Nino got used to looking at when he was still trying to prove his worth in the simulation halls.

“A category II showed up in Fukuoka,” Aiba informs him as they sit across each other in cafeteria. Nino’s stuck on soft foods for a while, and he plays with his mashed potatoes as Aiba stuffs curry rice inside his mouth.

Nino narrows his eyes at the information and Aiba nods. “Pulverized Fukuoka. We were too far to be able to send aid immediately. Thunderbolt handled it as quickly as they could, but the damage was already severe. Whatever the shipyards were building, well, they’re not going to fly anytime soon.”

“They’re trying to prevent us from leaving Earth,” Nino murmurs, and Aiba hums before pointing at him with a spoon.

“Sho-chan was right about these guys being far more advanced than us, that while they don’t know whatever plan their queen has for us, they know how to follow orders well enough to carry them out efficiently.” Aiba picks his teeth using one of his nails, his face scrunching as he tries to remove a bead of rice stuck between his teeth. “Which makes the higher-ups panic because, as you and I know, those old geezers were the first ones on the list to leave Earth once the spacecrafts were finished.”

Nino can imagine how “Beardy”, the guy Sho easily floored in the last meeting, wouldn’t be too enthralled to hear that. He also catches on to whatever Aiba’s implying. “We need to move,” he says quietly, and Aiba meets his eyes. “We need to move fast because they’re moving. They’re taunting us and we have to do something about that as soon as we can.”

Aiba makes an annoyed face at failing to get the rice stuck between his teeth, but when he turns to Nino, he’s all serious. “You and Jun-tan are grounded though. Leader says you’re not ready and Sho-chan agrees with him. I’m afraid my connection only stretches as far as the infirmary so I can’t get you out of the Shatterdome’s doors even if I use all the tricks up my sleeves.” Aiba looks apologetic. “Sorry, Nino.”

Nino waves a hand to dismiss Aiba’s apology. Aiba went as far as getting him out of the infirmary ahead of schedule and informed him of the recent events as if nothing has changed. Aiba has done more than enough and Nino is thankful for it. “You think Ohno will listen to anything I might have to say?”

Aiba looks thoughtful for a moment. “No,” he says honestly, and Nino nods, already knowing the answer even before he asked the question. He draws an X on his potatoes using the fork, and it’s then he sees Aiba grin.

“But I think Leader will listen to what both pilots of the Sentinel might have to say.”


	4. Chapter 4

Nino resolves to find Jun then. While Aiba heavily hinted that he needs Jun for Ohno to relent to their case, Aiba refused to tell him where Jun is in the Shatterdome.

“Come on, Nino,” Aiba had said, grinning like he won the lottery, “you can’t expect me to hand over all the clues to you. I already got you out of Kazapon’s clutches and saved you from Sho-chan’s inevitable scolding because I know that’s what Sho-chan does whenever he visits you. He worries over people like that; you have to forgive him. Anyway, don’t you think I already did much?”

That was true, and loathe was Nino to admit it, he had to find Jun on his own while staying in stealth mode. He still has to hide from Sho because Aiba warned him that Sho hates runaway patients and often nags the infirmary staff about it. Nino can only imagine what “Kazapon” would go through from the guy who successfully made every official in the Defense Corps shut up as he presented his theories.

Nino tries the usual places: the combat halls, the simulation rooms, even the hangar where repairs in the Sentinel are taking place. He carefully avoids the Shatterdome control room and Sho’s laboratory slash office. He tries the cafeteria multiple times and when he finally acknowledges that Jun can only be holed up in one place, he stands in front of the door to Jun’s quarters and knocks thrice.

There’s no response but Nino knows Jun’s probably looking through the peephole right now and he looks up so Jun can see his eyes. “Open up,” he says and waits, but there’s still nothing from the other side.

“Jun,” he calls out even if he’s not sure whether Jun hears him, “Jun, open up. It’s been three days.”

Three, and that’s counting from the day Aiba took him out of the infirmary. He was being treated for his injuries for a day and got stuck in the infirmary for another two days.

Jun hasn’t been out of his room in almost a week since the Kanagawa incident, and Nino all but begs him to open up. He can’t say whatever he has to say outside Jun’s door, and he knocks against the metal doors once more. “Please,” he says softly this time, “please open up.”

Nino doesn’t know how many seconds passed until he hears a click of the door unlocking, and Jun steps aside to let him in. Jun won’t look at him but Nino has seen enough. Jun didn’t sleep for days and probably ate very little, staying all cooped up in his quarters ever since Nino compromised things accidentally.

Jun leans against the door and looks at him expectantly, and Nino grabs the desk chair nearby to sit on it. He doesn’t trust his knees not to give way, not when he and Jun are finally going to talk about what happened when Nino threw them out of alignment.

From Nino’s experience, it’s best to be blunt about these things from the very beginning, and he takes a deep breath before squaring his shoulders and meeting Jun’s eyes.

“I fucked up,” he admits, but before Jun can say anything he holds up a hand. Jun needs to hear him out, and as soon as he got his mouth open, the words just came. “And I’m also fucked up. As you’ve seen back there. As you now know in case you didn’t think I was despite being inside my head multiple times. I thought I was okay but I’m really not. I’m just… really good at faking it. I keep it together because that’s what expected of me, but I’m also stupid enough to believe that I’ve silenced my ghosts when in reality they just took a break from haunting me.”

Jun doesn’t say anything so Nino continues. “It took me one road sign. Just one welcome sign to remember it all over again, and you know what? Ohno’s right. He has always been right. I’m not ready. I tried to be ready, I even acted like I was ready. I got so good at acting that even I believed it. But just one road sign from that day and I was back.” He laughs bitterly. “I’m fucked up, Jun. I probably was even before, but when she died, I don’t know, maybe it got worse. Maybe it screwed me up so bad even if I was already screwed up.”

Jun looks confused, his eyebrows coming together and Nino sighs, feeling extremely tired. The kind of exhaustion no amount of rest can fix. “I told you how sorry I was. Before, in here. I told you that, but I never told you how much of a pretentious fuck I am that I act like I’m brave enough to face my issues when in reality I just run away from them. I run using the Sentinel. When I step inside that Jaeger I feel like I have a purpose, like I’m not as useless as I truly am and I’m not a failure. I feel like I can be someone she’d be proud of. I fool myself into thinking that every time I get into that robot with you because I’m full of it. I use that privilege to tell myself that I’m good at something when I’m hardly able to keep it together once I start listening to the things inside my head. There’s so much fucked up stuff in here, you know?” He points to his temple, never looking away from Jun’s eyes. “I don’t know how you handle seeing that every time we drift because I use the drift to run away from it. I use the drift to cope because I can’t cope with the many things I brought upon myself.”

He leans back, laughing a little at his state. He doesn’t even know if he’s saying anything that makes sense, if he’s making any sense to Jun right now. All he knows is that Jun has to hear everything. “The guilt from when I left her, the regret from when I didn’t stop her from going, the guilt from when I realized that it’s not your fault, the regret that I blamed you for everything even still. It’s a cycle. It just keeps on going despite the focus shifting. Guilt comes hand in hand with regret and even if I act like it’s not affecting me, it does. It still does. The mission I fucked up is the proof of it. I act like I can keep it together because there’s nothing else I’m good at. I’m only good at acting, at lying to myself and to everyone else, at the confident and witty comebacks. That’s what I’m good at, Jun. I’m a really talented faker because I can’t sort my head out, and guess what, I endangered us both because of it. All because I can’t admit it to myself that I’ll never be good at anything else. I got so good at lying that for a moment it all felt real.”

Jun doesn’t look away, but Nino can’t read the expression on his face. Maybe because he’s totally out of sorts. He never talked about himself this way before. The drift makes it almost impossible to do so. When Nino’s drifting with Jun, he feels as if nothing else needs to be said because they just know.

But Nino’s getting something officer training never taught him, that suppressed emotions are not advisable when you’re inside a Jaeger because it can kill you. All the ugly things inside his head could have killed him and Jun. Jeopardizing the mission was one thing, but no one ever warned him about the severity of being compromised mentally and emotionally, so he’s learning it the hard way.

“I could have gotten the both of us killed,” he murmurs quietly, staring into Jun’s eyes. “All because I’m so screwed up. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you got me as a co-pilot. I’m sorry that these are the things about me that you got to know in this way. You told me once that you get scared. I never told you how scared I am, how much of a coward I am that I can’t even face the things I’ve created with my own hands. It’s funny. When I’m out there and inside a Jaeger I feel like I can cast a large shadow and make a change. I’m so absorbed with the idea of changing something in the world that I forgot how much fixing I needed to undergo. I’m sorry. I told you that before, but I need you to know. I’m so sorry, Jun-kun. I’m sorry for how I am. I’m not who I want to be. I’m sorry that you’re part of this… this failure that I am.”

Nino buries his face in his hands, breathing heavily. He’s trembling once more and he somehow wishes Riisa was here to take his shaking hands and give him a glass of water like before. His problem, Nino realizes, is not about being unable to let people go. Rather, it’s about him being unable to acknowledge that he’s incapable of letting things go out of fear of being alone. It only got worse when Riisa died. The reality of his fear regarding solitude hit him in the worst way possible, by creeping up inside him unknowingly and showing itself when he least expected it, when his defenses were down.

And instead of just him paying for that miss, Jun is paying too, because Jun is his right and has always been that way ever since they drifted for the first time.

“You’ve seen it,” Jun says after a moment and Nino looks up, listening. “What I tried to hide. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. You know the risks yourself. They teach you that in officer training. I tried to do it because I couldn’t deal with myself.”

Nino remembers the scars he saw on Jun’s skin, patterns which looked like raised lightning that served as a reminder of what Jun tried to do, of what Jun did. Nino looks around and sees that like in his own quarters, there are no mirrors in Jun’s.

Perhaps he’s not the only one terrified of reflections.

Jun laughs softly, a bitter sound that’s identical to what Nino did earlier. “And when it didn’t work, when they got me out of the Sentinel before I made it through the doors, guess what I did?” Jun looks at him and Nino waits. “I ran. I quit the program and tried to find something else to do. Tried to be useful. You lifted steel bars in Fukuoka. I made those steel bars in Hiroshima, became a factory worker because I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand being in a Jaeger because it reminded me of how deluded I was. I thought I was invincible when I was inside the Sentinel. I thought I could take on anything, could beat whatever monster the skies unleashed.”

Jun’s eyes never stray from his. “What I didn’t realize was that I’m the enemy I can’t beat, that I killed monsters because I can’t kill the monster inside me. But since I’m stubborn, I tried anyway. I got inside the Sentinel, wondered how much neural load I could take before I seized up, but since I’m stubborn, it didn’t work. I’m still here. In the end I went back here to Osaka. You came here to silence your ghosts. I came here only to find them waiting for me all this time.”

Nino understands. It didn’t matter where they ran. It didn’t matter if the ghosts followed them or waited for them. They never left no matter how hard they both tried. He and Jun are too alike in that aspect. Damaged, the both of them. The kind of broken that no amount of fixing would work on no matter how much time had passed. Jun is telling him these things because they’ve reached an understanding, something they stubbornly ignored the first time they had time to sit down and talk.

“I’m stubborn too,” Nino hears himself say and he laughs a little. “It would explain why I kept lying to myself. What an awful dose of luck, isn’t it, to find yourself stuck with someone probably as stubborn as you are?”

Maybe that’s how him and Jun became drift compatible. The system probably saw it before the both of them did. In a way, Nino admires the technology for catching on to something like that. He’ll never understand the science behind drifting and compatibility, but he’s starting to pick up a few pointers.

He wonders why he thought hiding these things was a good idea. He knows he’s afraid. He’s afraid of facing whatever issues he has with himself because facing them acknowledges that they’re real, and them being real is the most terrifying thought for him. In the end, not acknowledging them did more bad than good, and he’s filled with the familiar feeling of regret and guilt once more, the two emotions always go hand in hand.

“I’m sorry I failed you,” he says, looking at Jun. “But should the worst happen, when we’re out there fighting those monsters, will you trust me? To not knock both of us out of alignment, to not leave you, to have your back? I know it’s too much to ask. But I need to know. Will you?”

Jun doesn’t say anything for a while and Nino has to look away. He tells himself he’ll understand if Jun says otherwise. Jun has every right not to after everything that has happened.

“You’re my left,” Jun says suddenly and Nino looks up immediately, eyes wide. Jun lets out a small smile before nodding. “You’re my left. No matter how screwed up you are, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

Nino never considered addressing these things before because of the drift. In the drift it seemed like he had nothing more to say, like nothing needed to be said at all. But here he is, learning it the hard way. He and Jun are probably not the ideal ranger combo. They both have demons they’re battling day by day in their own ways, but Nino finds that the idea of Jun being with him inside the Sentinel feels like a firm reminder, an assurance that he’s not alone no matter how much the universe makes it seem so.

He finds he can believe that, that he can trust in that. He may not believe in himself but he can believe in Jun, that when he’s inside the Sentinel Jun is with him and Jun won’t leave him. He’s Jun’s left as much as Jun is his right, and without him, Jun wouldn’t get anywhere and that just won’t do.

“I guess I’m shit for luck as much as you are then, seeing as you’re stuck with me,” he says before laughing, an honest sound of amusement and soon, Jun joins him.

\--

“No,” Ohno says firmly, a little too quickly for Nino’s liking, but since Nino is stubborn, he tries again, only for Ohno to raise a hand to stop him from talking before repeating, “I said no, ranger.”

Ohno looks at him before turning to Jun. They’re standing outside the Shatterdome control room, having searched for Ohno as soon as they were done talking. As much as Nino wanted to preserve the moment, the comfortable state he and Jun found themselves in, they have no time.

“You two are grounded on the account of compromising the Kanagawa operation. I don’t care who did it. When you’re in a Jaeger, you’re both responsible for each other’s actions,” Ohno says in his usual calm voice. “And I told you before, ranger,” Ohno pauses, looking at him, “that I need you on your feet, not on your knees. I can’t send the two of you to your deaths. If you want to die, I’m afraid you’re going to have to do it without my help.”

Nino doesn’t back down. “With all due respect, sir,” he says, and the corner of Ohno’s lips twitch, “Fukuoka’s gone and operation leave the planet is now botched because of it. You need all five Jaegers you have to carry out the plan, that one chance we have of reclaiming Tokyo and even the entirety of this country. I don’t know what happens with the rest of the world and if they’re fighting their way to freedom, but you can’t expect us to sit here and not do the same when the Sentinel’s working and simply waiting for us.”

“Aiba-chan,” Ohno murmurs, and Nino frowns. “He told you about Fukuoka.” It’s not even a question and Ohno doesn’t seem interested in the answer should Nino even attempt to deny it, so Nino doesn’t.

“Leader,” Jun says, the first time he speaks since they arrived in the control room, and Ohno’s attention shifts to him, “you have to give us the clear. You say you don’t want to send us to our deaths, but what are you doing with the others? Why keep us here when we can help? We screwed up, yes, and while I can’t promise it won’t happen again, you have no choice but to risk it.”

Ohno takes a deep breath, like he already saw this coming. Nino’s actually thankful he’s got Jun on his side. Maybe Aiba was right. “What are you two asking of me, really? If not to trust you, what are you asking from me?” Ohno asks.

He and Jun share a glance and Nino just nods. “Give us the clear,” Jun says without hesitation and it even sounds like an order. “It’s up to you if you can find it in you to believe in us. But what we’re asking for is pretty simple. Just give us the clear.”

Ohno suddenly turns to him, and Nino can’t read the expression in Ohno’s face. “Are you ready for this?” Ohno asks in all seriousness.

Nino thinks about the question and all implications of it. Is he ready to do his part in the plan? Is he ready to see things until the end?

More importantly, is he ready to trust Jun completely?

“Yes,” he answers, and for a while Ohno just stares at him, as if measuring his honesty. Nino thinks Ohno is the only person in the Shatterdome who has seen through him since day one, the only person who saw how much hiding he’s doing.

Ohno lets out a long sigh. “The plan proceeds the day after tomorrow,” he informs them, and Nino grins. “The drop-off is at Koto so you can team up with the aid Korea sends our way. From there, everything else is the same. Fight your way to Sumida. When you see your chance, take it. The Air Force is still on your side and will help you in any way they can. You’ve got more than twenty-four hours to prepare yourselves for it, so I suggest you do whatever kind of mental preparation you think you need.”

He and Jun incline their head in understanding and thanks and Ohno waves the both of them off, shaking his head. They’re not even ten paces away from Ohno when they hear Ohno call them back.

This time, Ohno’s grinning. “I forgot,” he says, looking incredibly amused, “you guys need Sho-kun’s approval too. So before you prepare yourselves, find him first. But don’t tell him I sent you. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“We can’t say you gave us the clear until he gives it to us as well?” Nino confirms and Ohno nods. “Wow, thanks. Your analyst is one uptight man, just so you know. I don’t think he has forgiven me for taking off from the infirmary, so this will probably go very, very smoothly. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Ohno lets out a chuckle. “Stop by the cafeteria before you find him,” Ohno advises, a significant glint in his eye. “Sho-kun is easier to reason with if you bring something else to help convince him.”

\--

It takes them a bunch of witty comebacks and a bit of fresh Wakayama shellfish from the cafeteria to get Sho’s begrudging clear, and Nino laughs at Sho’s face when Jun finally tells the analyst that it was Ohno who put them up to it.

Sho only looks annoyed for a moment, but then his expression shifts once he meets Nino’s eyes. “I trust Satoshi-kun’s instincts regarding this. If he gave you the okay to be part of the mission then you’re probably okay to go. Maybe he saw some change in you, in Jun, or in the both of you. Whatever it is, it’s not my place to pry anymore. Now I still haven’t forgiven you for leaving the infirmary without permission, but that’s something we have to settle for another day.”

Nino grins, cocking his head to the side. “Why, Sho-yan,” he says, drawling out the nickname, “I didn’t know you cared that much, that the first thing you intend on doing if I do manage to survive is to grill me on infirmary protocol. This makes the prospect of dying kind of appealing.”

Sho raises an eyebrow as Jun lets out an amused laugh. “If you do survive, you’re still going straight to the infirmary so there’s no escape this time, Nino. Even if you rope Aiba into helping you.”

“If,” Nino repeats quietly, looking at Sho seriously, and Sho suddenly turns serious before sighing, his shoulders slumping.

“If,” Sho says, pushing his glasses up his nasal bridge. He suddenly looks tired. “I’m sorry I can’t be of any help anymore. I’m just full of theories. Even now I can’t prove there is a queen there somewhere. The rest of the world is acting according to my theories but what if I’m wrong? What if there’s nothing out there and it’s just a trap? I’ll be the guy who sent you all to your deaths.”

“That’s true,” Nino says and from the corner of his eye he can see Jun fixing him a look. Nino doesn’t let it bother him. “If you’re wrong, we’re going to die trusting your word. That’s a lot of baggage, and it’s nothing I can help you with. But think of it this way. You’re a smart guy. Probably the smartest guy and subsequently the most uptight person in this Shatterdome at that.” Sho shoots him a glare for that comment and he grins. “All the praise for your intelligence aside, we’re acting on your words because we believe you, we believe in you. If you’re wrong, well, we’re all fucked, but we’re all fucked either way so maybe it doesn’t make that much difference anymore.”

He keeps his eyes on Sho, smiling a little at the sight of Sho’s unkempt hair, the bags under his eyes. The proof of Sho’s diligence and unwavering desire to help out in his own way up until the very end. “Besides, I’d rather die listening to you. Won’t be such a bad way to go.”

Nino sees Jun smiling at his words, but Jun doesn’t say anything. Sho looks a little emotional for a moment, but he manages to blink the expression away. “If you make it, I’ll make sure you’re going to have to listen to me all the time,” Sho warns. “Both of you at that. You’re going to have to listen to anything I say if you get back here.”

Nino makes a pained face. “That doesn’t sound like an incentive, Sho-chan,” he mutters, making Jun laugh loudly.

\-- 

Jun finds him in the hangar bridge after their trip to Sho’s office. He claimed that he had some things to attend to and Jun excused himself as well, but Nino wasn’t in the hangar for long when he heard the familiar sound of Jun’s footsteps. He came here to think, to ask himself some questions before tomorrow comes, but of course Jun finds him before he even gets to the good part.

Jun stands beside him, and they both look at the Sentinel towering over them. It looks invincible in its restored dark blue metal plating, like the heroes in the many games Nino played back in the days. Knowing that it’s going to move because of him and Jun sends a thrill though him, and for a moment, he believes he is invincible too.

“Am I the only one?” he hears himself asking as they watch engineers flutter about under them and handle minor repairs in the Sentinel’s footing. Jun turns to him in confusion and he nods. “Am I the only one, Jun-kun, who feels like I can win when I look at her like this? Like we can actually get to Sumida and make it back alive?”

“No,” Jun answers immediately, his hands holding on to the railing of the bridge. “Right now I feel that too. Like we can actually make it. But at the same time, I know if I step inside her cockpit tomorrow, the fear will be back. Probably tripled at this rate. I don’t think that fear will go away.”

Nino focuses on the Sentinel’s gigantic head instead of looking at Jun. “I never asked you what you’re scared of. I feel it in the drift. Every time we drift I feel your fear like it is my own. It mixes with my own, I guess. But I never asked what it is that terrifies you exactly. It’s not dying. I’ve been in your head for so many times to know that you, like me, are not afraid of that. So what is it?”

From his periphery he can see Jun’s grip on the railing tightening, his knuckles turning white. “You’ve been in my head for so many times,” Jun tells him, “so aren’t you supposed to know already? Why are you even asking me to say it?”

Nino’s answer is immediate. “Because I need to hear it from you.”

Jun looks at him then, and Nino faces him. “Sometimes I feel like drifting with you makes me know everything about you,” Nino says, his eyes fixed on the different marks on Jun’s face, tiny imperfections that Nino has gotten so used to seeing. He wonders if this is the last time he can look at them freely. “I mean, I know that you grazed your knee when you fell off a swing when you were six and you acted like a big boy and didn’t cry until you got inside your own room. I know you hated Titanic’s ending because for you Jack wasn’t supposed to die, and that you adored Sister Act 2. I know you had a Dragonball Z poster in your room, and I know you get really embarrassed when I say these things out loud.”

Nino laughs at Jun’s face, how his cheeks are flushed and how he refuses to look at Nino anymore. Somehow, Nino wants to preserve this moment forever: the Sentinel standing right before them as he watches Jun’s reactions, the way Jun is torn between smiling sheepishly and holding it all back to appear tough. He finds himself enjoying this, this little bit of time he has with Jun, and he wonders if this is what Ohno meant with doing whatever preparation they think they need. For his part, he knows he needs this. He and Jun had unstable foundations, bound by a past that keeps on haunting them even as they try to move on. He needs to see Jun like this, needs Jun to say the things which they both thought need not to be said anymore.

But first, Nino has to say the words and not cower. He thinks he’s done a lot of hiding already.

“For all I know about you, I don’t seem to know the important ones,” he says, turning his gaze back to the Sentinel. “I know you know I’m scared too, and that I’m trying hard not to think of tomorrow because it might overwhelm me, but what you don’t know is what exactly I’m afraid of. But I need you to know before it’s too late. I have so many regrets, Jun-kun, so I’m scared of you becoming a part of them. I don’t want you to be part of them.” He smiles, trying to imprint the memory of the Sentinel watching over them. For a moment he wonders if his sister can see this. Would she be proud of him?

“I lost a co-pilot once,” Jun suddenly murmurs, and Nino turns, seeing Jun looking at him with an expression he never saw on Jun’s face before. “And I’m scared of losing another.” The admission sends a different kind of thrill in Nino, nothing like the one he felt earlier when he saw the Sentinel, but something raw and unexplored, something that threatens to take over him, devour him even.

And yet for once, he’s not afraid.

He’s not afraid of the unfamiliarity because it’s Jun.

“I’m scared of losing you,” Jun finishes, and this time, Nino doesn’t suppress himself from reaching out. It’s something he has always wanted to do, something he limited himself to doing only when he’s sparring with him. But now that the world is ending and he’s face to face with the one person who trusts him completely despite seeing the demons inside his head, he finds he can be brave.

He touches the sides of Jun’s face lightly, trying to remember the feeling of Jun’s skin under his fingertips for the first time. It might be the last and Nino wants to commit everything to memory. If he dies, he wants to remember how it feels like to have Jun’s comforting warmth under his fingers.

Jun shivers at the contact, but he neither shies nor looks away. Nino thinks he can hear Jun’s heartbeat and wonders if Jun can hear his too. When his fingers dance over Jun’s lips, Jun visibly trembles, his grip on the railing becoming tighter. Nino wants him more than ever, all his imperfections, his shyness, his uncertainties, his fears. Nino wants everything all at once, and he wonders if Jun can feel it, if Jun wants all of it as much as he does.

“I almost lost you in Kanagawa,” Jun whispers, and Nino has heard enough. He reaches for Jun, fingers a little forceful, a bit demanding as they hold Jun’s face, and he pulls Jun down to him to finally find out for himself what kissing Jun feels like. Jun lets out a strangled sound at the contact, but then he sighs, holding Nino in place and tilting his head to kiss back. Maybe they both held themselves back, on account of their rough beginnings.

“Kanagawa’s my fault,” Nino says in between kisses, his grip on Jun tightening. He feels like he’s floating and he needs Jun to anchor him to what’s real. He’s not sure if this is all happening, and for a moment he forgets about the damn kaiju and the impending apocalypse and just clings to Jun’s warmth. Jun’s presence, as always, grounds him, reminds him of the important things. “That was all me. I nearly lost you there.”

Jun kisses him silent, one hand on his nape to push them closer, like there’s still an ounce of space between them. Nino doesn’t have to be in Jun’s head to know that Jun needs him, too. He can feel it in the way Jun holds him, the way Jun’s fingers try to possess everything all at once. Jun’s selfish, something Nino has known ever since they drifted, and of course it extends to this.

Nino breaks the kiss to press his forehead against Jun’s, their breaths mingling. He doesn’t want to let go and Jun doesn’t, too, but this isn’t the right place. “Tomorrow,” Nino whispers, focusing on the feeling of Jun in his hands, “you’re not allowed to die on me. You’re allowed to call me a snotty kid and pin me down when we’re sparring, but you’re not allowed to die on me. You got that?”

Jun leans forward to kiss him again and Nino allows it, but only for a moment. He pulls back to ask, “Promise me that,” but Jun doesn’t, and Nino doesn’t need the drift to know what he’s thinking. He holds Jun’s face in his hands, his thumbs stroking Jun’s cheekbones. He wants to touch everything he can’t bear to lose, wants to try holding him in his hands because maybe he can protect him better that way, keep him from slipping away without warning.

“That’s my line,” Jun says, sounding a little anguished as he puts their foreheads together. Nino can feel Jun trembling under his fingers, all nervous energy uncoiling at once. He can almost touch Jun’s fear. “Don’t you dare die on me tomorrow. You can insult my taste in movies, mock my eyebrows, but don’t you do that. Not tomorrow, not ever.”

Nino laughs a little, something Jun silences with another desperate kiss, and Nino feels like too much is happening at once. He thinks he can hear everything and nothing at the same time, thinks he’s aware of where he is and nothing else but Jun, aware of how Jun feels against him and how Jun tastes like when pressed against his lips. It’s like everything is heightened and hastened but also muted and slowed down, like time is running out but standing still at the same time.

“Jun,” he manages to whisper, and Jun makes a frustrated growl, letting go of him to take his hand, already leading them out of the hangar. Nino entangles his fingers with Jun’s, squeezing Jun’s hand, and Jun just holds on to him tighter. Maybe he doesn’t want to let go either. Maybe this is something he doesn’t want to lose but to fiercely protect with all his might. Maybe this is what they’re truly scared of, the idea of finding something only to lose it again.

Nino leads Jun to his room, feeling only a bit of hesitation on Jun’s part before Jun follows, and he barely has the door shut before Jun reaches for him, nothing too different from the way Nino made the first move earlier.

Jun kisses him like he wants to possess all of him, and Nino retaliates by doing the same, by burying his fingers in Jun’s hair as Jun holds on to him. Jun’s hair is longer now compared to the first time they saw each other, a reminder that they’ve already gone through a lot together, and it only makes Nino cling to Jun tighter.

In his hands, in his mouth, Jun feels too warm, like a ball of fire that will engulf Nino at any chance it gets. His blood feels like it’s boiling and he feels stuffed, as if he’s burning from the inside. Jun pushes him towards the bed and he pulls Jun down with him, silencing any protests Jun might have with a kiss as searing as the one they shared before.

Jun’s fingers are quick and precise in their movements, easily divesting Nino of the Shatterdome-issued jumpsuit, and Nino shivers at the contrast he suddenly feels against his skin. He thinks the temperature in his room has abruptly dropped because Jun is too hot, even scorching underneath his fingers when Nino holds on to him as Jun moves to press his lips against Nino’s neck. Nino cards his fingers through Jun’s hair, pushing him closer to where he needs him and he bucks, one hand grasping Jun’s bicep like an anchor, finding that his body is reacting on its own as a response to Jun’s efforts.

He feels fingers slipping underneath his tank top and he opens his eyes to see Jun watching his every reaction, like Jun can’t keep away and can’t stop looking at him, like he’d disappear anytime. Nino helps Jun get his top off, and he pushes himself to sit up and assure Jun that he’s here, that he’s not going anywhere.

“I’m right here,” he breathes, and Jun looks cornered, so very similar to the first time they met. Nino reaches for his face to plant reassuring kisses on his mouth. He can sense Jun’s fear, the way it seeps through the cracks and reveals its terrifying self. It feels real, even solid. Jun’s shaking, his heart rate spiking in his chest under Nino’s fingertips, and Nino wants to reassure him again. “I’m here, Jun. I’m not going anywhere.”

It may not be what Jun wants to hear from him, but Nino doesn’t want to lie. He doesn’t know what will happen tomorrow, but he can promise on whatever happens tonight. He’s here and he doesn’t plan on leaving Jun alone, and that’s something Jun needs to hear.

“I’m right here,” he repeats, and Jun kisses him, hard enough that he can feel the line of Jun’s teeth against his lips. Jun’s hands are as desperate as his own when they come together to work on the buttons of Jun’s jumpsuit, and Nino wastes no time to remove Jun’s shirt the moment he grabs hold of it.

He pulls back from Jun’s intoxicating kisses to push the material over Jun’s head and he automatically reaches out to touch the bits of raised skin he can see on Jun’s sides, beginning from his ribs and running as far as his spine, the residues of Jun’s guilt. He runs his fingers over them, trying to memorize the self-inflicted scars by touch alone, and he somehow manages to push Jun to the side to flip their positions.

Before Jun can say anything Nino leans down, pressing kisses to the patterns on Jun’s skin, taking delight in the way Jun’s body reacts, all tense muscles loosening up. He wants all of Jun, Jun’s regrets, Jun’s doubts, Jun’s secrets. He wants everything and more at the same time, and he tries to let Jun know by mapping Jun’s skin with his fingers and his mouth, spreading warmth and familiarity, claiming everything he can see by stroking his fingers over it and planting kisses wherever he can.

He tries to find all of the markings on Jun’s lithe body hardened by training, guilt, and years that passed by. He attempts to remember all of them, their locations, their appearances, their differences. There’s so much about Jun that he wants to know, so many aspects of Jun he wants to learn over and over again despite what little time they have.

Nino yanks the rest of Jun’s clothing down Jun’s shins, and Jun helpfully kicks them off, sending them somewhere to the foot of the bed. Nino doesn’t care anymore, and he fumbles with the waistband of Jun’s boxers for a moment as Jun leans on his elbows and meets him in the middle for another kiss.

“Come on,” he says impatiently against Jun’s lips, yanking at the elastic band of Jun’s boxers for emphasis, and Jun grins before complying, lifting his hips off the bed so Nino can remove the last article of clothing from Jun’s body.

He doesn’t ask, just kisses Jun again as he sets himself astride Jun, one hand on his nape and the other on his now-exposed length. He hears Jun sigh against his mouth when he strokes experimentally, trying to determine the proper friction that will send Jun panting, and presses kisses down Jun’s neck while adjusting his grip.

He nips at Jun’s neck, tasting every bit of Jun’s skin under his lips, feeling Jun’s pulse thumping frantically. Nino thinks it’s just like drifting, the way Jun’s blood pumps rapidly and how Jun’s heart rate matches his own. Like this, Nino feels as if they’re one, sharing the same consciousness despite them not being in the Sentinel.

Just like this, Nino feels brave, powerful, even invincible.

Jun arches into his touch, but bites his lip to keep anymore sounds from coming out. Nino pauses in his movements and looks at Jun, at the almost-black eyes that have been honest from the very beginning.

“Let me hear you,” Nino asks, pleads. “I need to hear you.”

Nino moves his hand again and this time Jun gasps, his lower lip quivering as he throws his head back, and it’s like watching something simultaneously precious and forbidden. Nino leans forward to lick one long stripe along Jun’s neck, nipping lightly at Jun’s throat when Jun swallows a lungful of air in an attempt to keep himself grounded. When Nino’s hand squeezes, Jun lets out a tiny high-pitched breath, and Nino wants to hear him make that sound again so he moves his hand faster, listening to Jun’s hitched breaths as Jun bucks helplessly into his fist.

His movements are suddenly stopped by Jun's hand wrapping around his wrist. Jun's breathing raggedly as they look at each other, and there's such intensity in his eyes that Nino tries to move his hand again, but Jun's grip tightens. Nino wants to kiss him and hear him moan once more but Jun shakes his head. Jun’s hands reach for his jumpsuit, still wrapped around his waist and Nino smiles, kissing the corner of Jun’s mouth before getting off the bed to remove his clothes himself.

He hisses a little when cool air hits his skin but Jun immediately pulls him back onto the bed, and Nino situates himself astride Jun once more. He grinds down and Jun clings to his hips, letting out a garbled groan at the feeling as Nino hisses through his teeth. Jun cranes his neck to kiss him and Nino responds with eagerness, letting Jun’s hands touch every bit of him, up the small of his back, his hips, his sides. Jun’s fingers trace his spine with certainty and he shivers, feeling like he can get lost in this.

The Shatterdome is peaceful around them, no flutter of movement outside his room and no announcements can be heard from the speakers. The alarms are silent and there’s nothing but the constant buzzing mixed with the sound of his and Jun’s breath resonating in Nino’s ears. When he inhales he smells Jun— a tangy, almost musky hint of a scent that makes him heady, and he hardly resists.

Nino forgets tomorrow. All he can focus on is the feeling of Jun under him, the scent of Jun mixed with his, the look in Jun’s eyes that tells him everything he needs to know. He moves, grinding his hips against Jun’s as he swallows Jun’s appreciative moans with chaste brushes of his lips. He wants to remember all of this and not think about anything else.

Jun nips his earlobe while he continues moving, providing the much needed friction that makes both of them shudder. The sharp sensation makes him grind down harder— a motion that sends them both reeling even more and with Jun shakily whispering his name against his ear. He feels something snap inside of him, makes him feel like he’s drowning and yet he welcomes it, wants to hear it all the time.

“Again,” Nino begs, and it’s becoming harder to breathe. His room suddenly feels cramped and there’s heat inside him that threatens to burst out and scorch everything in its path. “Say that again.” He sounds fractured, almost wrecked as he cants his hips up and Jun meets his eyes, the want and desperation so obvious in the way Jun looks at him. His thighs are shaking and his toes are curling, but he ceases movement if only to hear Jun grant his request.

“Kazu,” Jun breathes, and Nino kisses him as he moves once more, tiny jerks of his hips that soon turn too desperate, too needy. Jun needs him, and he can hear it in Jun’s strangled voice as Jun repeats his name. He rocks himself against Jun, the tiny gasps of his name urging him on as Jun clings to him. He can feel himself getting close with each shaky breath, with each snap of his hips. Just one thing, one push from Jun and it’ll all be over for him.

“If I don’t make it,” Jun suddenly says and Nino’s eyes snap open. He’s still trapped in his haze so it takes him a few moments, but when it sinks in, he bites at Jun’s bottom lip in anger.

“Don’t fucking say that to me,” he all but snarls, kissing Jun with more teeth this time. His movements slow down, but Jun’s fingers are still holding on to him tightly, his blunt nails digging into Nino’s hips. “Don’t. Don’t ever say that.”

Jun kisses him, hard enough to silence him, and Nino gasps against Jun’s mouth when he feels Jun’s hand reaching between them, grabbing hold of him. “Jun,” he whispers, and he’s aware he sounds a little broken. Jun plants a kiss to his cheek before stroking fast, his forehead against Nino’s as he breathes hard.

“If I don’t make it, promise me you won’t do as I did,” Jun tells him, voice desperate and hand insistent, but Nino understands. He buries his face in Jun’s neck, hating how selfish Jun is for asking this of him. He shakes his head repeatedly, unable to form words as his hips eagerly meet every movement Jun’s hand makes.

Everything is happening in flashes, in bursts of heat and pleasure, and as much as Nino wants to bask in it, to let it all drown him, Jun doesn’t let him. He quickly realizes that Jun will be his undoing, that he has surrendered all he has left to Jun because he has nothing else left to give. He can’t promise anything so he chooses to say nothing, trying to push Jun’s request out of his mind. He focuses on Jun’s scent, Jun’s hand on him, and replays the look on Jun’s face when they first kissed. It’s everything he doesn’t want to let go, everything he can’t let go of.

Jun’s other hand latches on to his hip, squeezing tightly, and it grabs his attention despite him nearly losing himself in the sensations. “Promise me you won’t spend your days blaming yourself if anything happens to me.”

Fuck you, Nino wants to say, fuck you for being like this, for asking this from me. Jun looks out for him even up to now and Nino hates him for it. Jun nudges him with a shoulder and Nino can hear Jun’s breath hitching— Jun’s close and it won’t be long for him either.

Nino lifts his head and braces himself by clinging to Jun’s broad, sweat-slickened shoulders. He meets Jun’s eyes and wills himself to preserve this moment in his head: the sight of Jun needy, his pupils blown and lips swollen, his cheeks flushed from the exertion, his breath heaving. He looks so beautiful to Nino’s eyes and he’s everything Nino doesn’t want to lose.

“If I make it,” he says in quick breaths before reaching down and taking Jun in his hand, watching how Jun’s mouth parts open in a shuddering breath, “then you make it too.” He squeezes and Jun arches, losing himself abruptly, and the sight of him coming undone is what brings Nino to the brink.

He falls forward, panting against Jun’s neck as Jun leans back with their combined weights against the headboard, his breath rushed and heartbeat in a frenzy. Nino doesn’t know if Jun’s shivering because of what just happened or out of fear, so he pulls back a little, holding Jun’s face in his hands.

“I won’t accept anything else,” he whispers, stroking Jun’s cheeks, finding them hot to the touch. Jun is so warm and his presence is so comforting, even reassuring. Nino wants to remain like this for as long as he can, entirely absorbed in the feeling of Jun all over him. This is much better than being in the drift, he realizes. In the drift he can always find Jun, see Jun waiting for him, but here he knows that Jun is with him, is sure that Jun isn’t going anywhere without him.

He brushes off a lock of stray hair from Jun’s sweaty forehead before kissing each of Jun’s eyelids, the tip of his nose. He traces the outline of Jun’s lips with shaky fingers, lingering a little on the marks he sees above, under, and on Jun’s lips. He recalls the other markings on Jun’s skin and likes that he remembers more than he expected.

Nino lets out a soft laugh, pressing his forehead against Jun’s. “You’re really stupid for asking, you know that? As if I’d do it. As if I’d actually listen to you. You’re not half as badass as Sho is and I didn’t even listen to him. What made you think I’d listen to anything you say?”

Jun laughs a little, pressing back. “Don’t talk about Sho when we’re like this. It really kills the mood.”

Nino chuckles, planting a chaste kiss at the corner of Jun’s lips. “Whatever happens tomorrow,” he says, fingers tracing patterns down Jun’s neck, his chest, until Nino reaches his scars and maps them thoroughly, “I’m with you.”

All the way, until the end, he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t think he has to. They don’t need the drift to understand one another. Nino knows that Jun understands, that Jun knows. He probably must have known all along, but because he’s stubborn, he still tried to change Nino’s mind. Like it would work. Maybe Jun forgot how stubborn he could be too.

Jun kisses him and Nino loses himself in it. He may not be able to promise Jun a lot of things, but this is one promise that will do, that he’ll stick with Jun for as long as he’s allowed to, for as long as Jun needs him to.

Whatever happens tomorrow, he’s not leaving Jun, and somewhere deep inside in Nino, he knows it’s the same for Jun. If they make it, they will make it together.

Together, or not at all.

\--

The morning of doomsday, as Nino likes to call it, started with him discovering how terrible Jun is in the mornings, something he continues laughing about as they let the drivesuit technicians to strap them up.

Afterwards, when they are walking to the Sentinel’s Conn-Pod, Nino stops Jun with a hand on his elbow. Jun looks at him quizzically, but Nino just shrugs before holding out his palm.

Jun recognizes the object, but still looks up at him in confusion. Nino takes one of Jun’s hands and places the string bracelet in Jun’s palm. “I gave this to her for good luck,” he says even if Jun already knows it, having seen the memory so many times. “And right now I want you to have it.”

“Why?” Jun asks, his uncertainty seeping through his features and eventually reaching Nino.

Nino takes a deep breath as he squeezes Jun’s hand once, smiling before letting go. “What do you think? For good luck. If we make it, you can give it back to me. But till then, it’s yours.”

He enters the Sentinel’s cockpit without looking back, hearing Jun’s footsteps following him after a while. Jun doesn’t ask anymore as he stands on the right and puts on his helmet, letting the machines around them do the work.

“By the way, I need to tell you that you’re so incredibly unattractive in the mornings,” Nino says to lighten the mood as the spinal clamp latches on their suits, and he hears Jun snort. “Like, if I had known you’d look like that, I would have done it earlier.”

“Don’t say it,” Jun says, and Nino laughs because he knows everyone in the control room can hear them and Jun is embarrassed. The relay gel paints their helmets yellow and soon enough, Nino’s in the drift, getting an influx of Jun’s memories in a matter of seconds before the world rights itself again.

He likes being in the drift because Jun can see and hear whatever he’s thinking, although Nino’s only found a great use for the privilege now. He spends the majority of the travel to Koto in silence, but when he finally sees the edges of the ruined port, he begins recalling the memories of last night.

Nino can feel Jun’s sudden embarrassment followed by slight exasperation and he laughs as Jun groans. “This is neither the right place nor the right time,” Jun tells him, but because he’s Nino, he goes for the gold.

He recalls how Jun's touches made him feel and how he savored the look on Jun's face as Jun came undone, and he almost laughs at Jun's pointed thought of _Kazu_. Even without hearing Jun's tone he can feel how Jun admonishes him, and his response to that is to recall how Jun said his name for the first time.

"More like moaned," he murmurs quietly, and he laughs loudly as Jun threatens bodily harm through the meld.

"Kinky," he comments, recalling how often Jun had him pinned down in the combat halls. It feels like a memory of a lifetime ago. "I knew you enjoyed pinning me down in the combat grounds. I was only half-joking that time I called you out on it because deep inside, I just knew it!"

Sho's disapproving voice cuts through the one-sided conversation he's having with his co-pilot via the comms. "Improper use of the communications device, Nino. You do know we can hear you, right?"

"And you know I don't really care," he says, laughing a little. "Indulge a dying man, all right? If I make it then you can scold me about propriety all you want."

He shifts his thoughts to remember how good being with Jun felt last night, how every kiss felt like coming home and finding a home at the same time, and how every touch felt like an anchor, a stability he always knew he needed but only found the night before. He lets Jun know that he felt safe and secure, allowing his emotions to speak for him, and he can sense something similar coming from Jun, followed by Jun’s gratitude.

Sometimes, it amazes him how Jun’s warmth radiates even in the drift. It feels so tangible that Nino thinks he can reach out and take it, cherish it forever. Maybe he feels it because he’s grown too familiar with Jun to be able to tell. Maybe it’s the same for Jun, easily finding a place in the drift where everything’s comfortable and nothing needs to be said, for they said everything they needed each other to know.

They’ve come so far, the both of them. Nino thinks of Riisa and imagines her being proud of him, and he feels Jun’s assurances through the connection. For once, he listens to Jun and believes him. Nino’s still far from the person he wishes to become, but he’s getting there and that’s something to take pride in. Should he need someone to remind him of the important things, there’s always Jun beside him, a presence he’s grown accustomed with before he even realized it. Nino won’t let go of this one until his dying breath, not if he can help it.

The chinooks carrying the Sentinel drop them close to the coast, with Cruiser and Diablo trudging before them. Inferno and Thunderbolt are somewhere close by, and to their left, Nino can see two unfamiliar Jaegers from Korea.

He senses Jun bracing himself, and Nino finds his courage in that. He thinks about Jun beside him and uses it to ground himself in case he relapses. He remembers Jun’s words from last night, from Jun’s admissions to his needy whispers, as well as all the little things about him that Nino can’t bear to part with and he vows he’ll do all he can to protect all of that.

He failed Jun once. He’ll do everything in his power not to fail Jun again, not when Jun needs him now more than ever.

They continue on, all fourteen of them inside seven vessels which carry the hopes of a nation once lost, and Nino thinks, as he sees the sun rise and bathe them in a blanket of harmless, almost ethereal glow, today is a day worth living.


	5. Chapter 5

Aiba was right about the place being barren; nothing but rubble and concrete and remnants of urbanization lying everywhere Nino looks. The sun shines over their heads, casting large shadows onto the ground and making them feel like they’re formidable, but the signs of ruin everywhere they look remind them of what they lost.

Underneath each block, each chunk of collapsed concrete and every piece of shattered glass, Nino wonders if all of these put together paint a picture of the hopes his countrymen lost, a memento from the aftermath of the disruption of peace. The Jaegers were created to provide a spark of hope for the people, to give people something to believe in despite the impending doom that no one foresaw until it came, but how many people saw the machines for what they truly were? How many people saw that the Jaegers were just buying everyone time as the enemy plotted mankind’s demise with each passing day, each passing wave?

How many people’s dreams were destroyed by the Jaegers being eventually overpowered?

Nino wonders about all those people they failed to save. He stands in solidarity with everyone who fought now, and he shares the brunt of their regret, their guilt at being unable to do anything, at being too late. He wonders what all those people thought before the destruction came falling from the sky and shut whatever window to a future they were looking at. They were all unprepared and even if someone had warned them about doomsday, no one could have imagined it would come in the hands of colossal monsters from outer space.

The Sentinel along with six other Jaegers trudges forward, and Nino can see the remains of the collapsed subway underneath their feet, the shattered entryways and the dust and concrete surrounding them. How many people were trapped in there while he was being shuffled in the back of the truck many years ago? He looks around or as much as the Sentinel’s viewscreen allows him to, and he wonders if Japan can haul itself back up, if it can rebuild itself using the destroyed dreams and forgotten hopes of its people.

He’s aware that Jun can sense his emotions and all of his doubts. Jun doesn’t say anything though, because Nino knows he’s also wondering about the same things. They’re in the capital of a once proud nation, and everywhere they look lies nothing but reminders of everything they lost, of everything they had to sacrifice to get to where they are.

They reach the edge of Koto when the first kaiju appears, its roar so deafening that it definitely alerted all the other kaijus in the surrounding areas of their presence. Through the comms, Aiba’s voice confirms it’s a category II, and the Cruiser sets to handle it with Diablo as its backup. Everyone is on high-alert now, knowing that what lies next is Sumida, and what’s coming is them fighting not for their lives but for a future they once lost sight of.

Nino stops thinking and just acts. He stops minding the technicalities, the chances of him and Jun making it, the possibility that Sho is wrong and there’s nothing out there but death. He stops worrying about what’s coming and focuses instead on what’s happening, if only to assure himself that he’s in the moment and he’s living in it with Jun by his side.

They slash a category I’s head off as they continue forward, the Sentinel’s A.I. reminding them of the state of their weaponry. They’re all walking in the middle of the hive and it’s suicide no matter how Nino looks at it, but he’s done with being realistic about these things.

Maybe he acquired a bit of Sho and Ohno’s idealism because of their association. Maybe he’s being an idealist for holding on to a spark that has a high chance of being extinguished if he loses focus for a moment.

He finds that he doesn’t care what he is, not anymore. He’s in the Sentinel and he’s in the Sentinel with Jun, and no matter what the skies throw at them, Nino thinks he has a chance of fighting back, of standing up. They’ve been pushed past their defenses, past their limits. He’s had to face himself, his own worst enemy, to stand here beside Jun.

He will fight for that until the very end. It’s a privilege to be here with Jun, to carry the forgotten dreams and aspirations of a damaged nation. He may not be the person who helped reclaim six prefectures, but he’s here now in a Jaeger and it’s enough to tell him that he has a shot, no matter how small it seems to be.

The Sentinel is limping and they’ve lost the Inferno and the Diablo in Ishiwara by the time they see it. In the place where Tokyo Sky tree once stood is a raised platform surrounded by monsters Nino only thought he saw in mangas and games he bought in Akihabara. They’re the category V’s Ohno talked about, but instead of a kaiju of a higher category behind them, Nino sees a smaller, spindly creature similar to an aquatic being, its head elongated.

“Sho-chan,” he murmurs as he and Jun fire a plasma cannon at the head of a category III standing in their way, “you were right all along.”

Nino doesn’t know what to call it, but its appearance is even more otherworldly than the kaijus Nino has seen. It’s clearly the puppet master, its crab claw-like feet moving constantly behind its three bodyguards.

Sho was right about the kaijus protecting one thing, but he was wrong about what they were protecting. It’s Jun who realizes it first, but because they’re in a meld Nino follows his train of thought almost immediately, knowing that Jun is right. The queen behind the category V’s is constantly in movement because it’s building something, a series of protruding columns made of biological material, its tips pointed toward the skies.

“Oh shit,” Nino mutters as he and Jun slash a tentacle trying to wrap itself around the limbs of the Sentinel. “It’s… they’re building a portal.”

It can’t be anything else. He’s suddenly swept by an overwhelming feeling of dread at the implications of what they’re seeing. If the kaijus all over the world are indeed congregating in certain places in different countries, then their kind are building structures to act as a one massive portal upon its completion. Falling from the sky like meteors wasn’t enough for them, and years of destruction was apparently too slow of a progress in their mission to colonize Earth. They intend to send the rest of their biological weapons and kind by opening a portal from their dimension leading to Earth.

“It’s a bridge,” Jun says as they block consecutive blows delivered by a kaiju tail aiming for the Sentinel’s head. “They’re creating structures all over the planet to construct one massive bridge, one that leads from there to here.”

If the bridge is completed, Nino knows they’re all done for. The Jaegers were created to beat the kaijus, but the kaijus were simply the biological weaponry of the true monsters. Whatever’s behind those category V’s that’s moving steadily and with precision, its kind is the one that wants the Earth for themselves. The kaijus are just the stepping stones to their goal of dominating the planet, bioengineered soldiers whose purpose is to do all the dirty work. They were just paving the way for the grand plan, the promise of absolute annihilation.

Somehow, even with the Sentinel’s collapsing functionality and unstable left leg, they manage to make it close to where Sky tree once stood with Thunderbolt, Cruiser, and one of Korea’s Jaegers by their side. They’re all in awful condition, and Nino wonders how long they’ll last. There are three category V’s standing between them and the half-complete gateway and its engineer.

“Shun and I plan to dance,” Ikuta says through the comms, and from his right, Nino sees Jun shutting his eyes briefly in understanding. “We’re in bad shape anyway, worse than you lot. Might as well try to take one of the bastards down with us.”

Nino has never known Ikuta nor his partner Oguri long enough, but he has stood with them in this last chance that he knows there’s no other way except respect the decisions of his fellow rangers.

“So make sure you get that one, all right?” Oguri says, pertaining to the queen, before the Cruiser charges, and Nino knows they only have a few moments, a bit of time left to move closer to aim for their target. They run the opposite direction as the Cruiser’s battle cry rings in their ears, and Nino shuts his eyes when the comms go static.

“This is Kato from the Thunderbolt,” is what pierces through the intercoms next, “and we’ve still got four anti-Kaiju missiles functioning. No time to talk because we’re already locked and loaded, but Koyama and I here wish best of luck to you boys. Korea, you’re with us to try and hold those monsters down, buy us a bit of time.”

It happens quickly. The Sierra Thunderbolt fires its missiles as the Jaeger from Korea tackles a category V to render it immobile. Its exploded innards paint its surroundings cyan, and that’s all Nino gets to see because he and Jun are charging towards the platform.

They don’t have any functional weapons. The plasma cannons of the Sentinel are empty, and they used all their missiles to blow up a category IV with sharp spines and lizard-like appearance from earlier. The Sentinel’s A.I. warns them of the other category V still moving behind them, and when Nino checks the comms, there’s nothing but static from Thunderbolt’s side.

“Don’t turn,” Jun says just as he was thinking it. “Don’t look back. We go forward. They want us to go forward. Don’t look back, Kazu. We don’t have time.”

Through the comms, he can hear Ohno warning them that they only have one shot, and the only weapon they have at their disposal is the Sentinel’s reactor. Nino resigns himself to it as they run, knowing that there’s a kaiju behind them and even if it’s slowed down, they have no capabilities of subduing it if it catches up to them.

The plan is simple and he feels Jun’s resignation mingling with his through the drift. They’re sprinting now despite the Sentinel’s broken ankle, making their way towards the queen and its half-complete infrastructure as they overload the reactor. Hopefully they get a few seconds before the Sentinel blows up, but whatever happens, Nino prepares himself for it.

He has Jun. Jun is with him throughout this, after everything. If they go down, then they go down with the bridge collapsing with them. It won’t be a bad way to go.

“I never answered your question,” Jun says as the Sentinel A.I. tells them that they’re a minute from impact and the reactor is reaching critical levels, “but I didn’t return any chocolates on White Day. I liked my kindergarten teacher and none of my classmates, so I never gave back any when White Day came.”

Nino finds himself laughing. “Heartbreaker Matsumoto,” he says, “with your big smile and honest eyes and menacing eyebrows. Certified lady-killer.”

They’re only a few feet away from the queen and he and Jun dive for it, pinning the creature’s form underneath the Sentinel’s bulk as they hear the roar of the category V behind them. They’re a few seconds from blowing up, but Nino waits until the kaiju’s close enough before he jabs an elbow into the console to his right, enabling Jun’s escape pod.

“No, Nino, what are you—” is all Jun gets to say because his drivesuit detaches itself from the clamp and the pod rises to envelop him completely. Nino hits the ‘eject’ button forcefully, and he senses Jun’s shock followed by anger and panic in the last few seconds that they’re connected.

He meets Jun’s worried and fearful eyes with determination, and he shoots Jun a brief salute, something Jun is undoubtedly familiar with given all the memories they’ve shared in all of their drifts. Jun’s eyes are fierce and intense, just like everything else about him, and Nino commits the image to memory.

He smiles as the pod drops in the opened escape hatch, knowing that Jun will definitely hate him for what he did, but at least Jun’s safe now. The Sentinel’s A.I. indicates the ejection of the pod as it counts down to the seconds, and one of the sensors that are still functioning tells him that the launch pod landed far from where they are, far enough that the incoming nuclear blast from the Sentinel won’t reach it.

The effect of losing Jun in the cockpit is immediate. Nino gets a sudden influx of neural load, threatening to shatter his concentration and make him lose it. He blinks furiously despite his eyes burning, tears caught at the edges of his eyelids. He keeps the queen pinned under him as it thrashes wildly and lets out a shrill scream that threatens to split Nino’s ears. Its claw-like feet kick him repeatedly, scratching the plating on the Sentinel but Nino holds his ground, knowing that it won’t be long.

Nino doesn’t have time, but he has to make sure that this creature, its gateway, and its weapon are going down with the Sentinel. When he feels the category V pouncing on him he shuts his eyes and pounds on the console one last time, just a few seconds before the reactor overheats and finally explodes.

\--

Nino’s not aware how long he’s out.

He opens his eyes only to close them again, suddenly blinded by the rays of sunlight. There’s something on top of him that keeps him from moving and when he reaches up to cover his eyes, he finds that his helmet is gone.

Suddenly, there are hands on his face. Familiar, trembling hands with gentle caresses despite their calloused palms, thumbs stroking his cheeks, his forehead, the corners of his eyes.

“You really like me helpless and trapped under your weight,” he grunts, cracking one eye open to look at Jun’s face. Of course it’s Jun. Jun always finds him first, after all. In the combat halls when they first met, in hangar as he looked at the Sentinel and wondered about his sister, even in the drift.

Jun seems to uncoil upon meeting his eyes, his shoulders slumping in relief as his worry gradually disappears from his face. His is exactly the face Nino wanted to see first from the moment he opened his eyes to a new day. “What,” he huffs, "you couldn’t wait till we’re back in Osaka?”

Jun delivers a playful punch to his armored chest. It doesn’t hurt, but since Nino’s feeling good about actually surviving, he groans exaggeratedly. “This is how you repay the guy who saved your ass? Seriously? Not bragging, Matsumoto, but I got you out and nuked that portal and made it here, and the first thing you do is punch—”

Jun stretches over him then, kissing him silent. Nino smiles against Jun’s mouth, finding enough strength in him to kiss back. He still can’t move his arms and Jun has him effectively trapped, but it’s not uncomfortable. Jun’s presence is as reassuring as ever and Nino doesn’t want to go anywhere. Mostly because he’s incapable of moving at all, but that’s not the point.

“Did I get it, though?” he asks when Jun pulls away, and Jun nods.

The comms attached to his drivesuit beeps in static before he hears Ohno’s relieved voice. “You got them good, ranger. The bridge or whatever it was they were building there, it collapsed when you set the Sentinel on it. We’re getting reports from all over the world that nuking the structures are causing the kaijus in the vicinity to shut down.”

Nino coughs a little and he feels Jun stroking his face in worry. He shakes his head to dismiss it, smiling a little. “The others?” he asks, his voice nothing but a hoarse croak. He feels like he screamed for hours and his throat has gone dry.

It’s Aiba who answers this time. “You’re not the only tough guy, Nino, even if you like to think you’re so special. Toma-chan and Shun-kun made it, although they’re looking at long sessions with Kazapon considering the state they’re in.”

“You’re all tough, crazy bastards,” Sho interjects and Nino manages to laugh despite his condition. “We’re sending choppers to you now. You and Jun need to be examined for injuries.”

Always the worrier. Nino meets Jun’s eyes and Jun just nods. “We’re fine, Sho-yan,” Nino says, dismissing the offer for aid. Their fallen comrades and fellow rangers in arms need it more than they do, and he tells Sho as much. Sho doesn’t seem agreeable, even pointing out how unstable Nino sounds like, but it’s Jun who answers for Nino this time.

“I got him covered,” Jun assures them, and that seems to be enough for Sho.

“He also has me pinned down,” Nino adds, laughing when he hears Sho’s scandalized huffs of “For the love of all that is holy, I do not want to know! When you get back here, Nino, you are definitely going to learn how not to use the comms!”

Jun releases him from the pod before getting off him, and Nino rolls to his side to lie beside Jun in the middle of the street, collapsed buildings and overturned, flattened vehicles surrounding them. It’s not a pretty picture, but when Nino looks up, the sun is shining and the skies are clear, making him forget that he’s lying in the wake of destruction.

A flock of birds fly overhead, their squawks somehow bringing a smile to Nino’s face. Beside him, he hears Jun grunt as Jun shifts, trying to get comfortable despite the hard concrete under their bodies. Jun seems to sense his worry despite not being connected to him; Jun waves a hand to indicate he’s fine, although he believes he may have torn a muscle and dislocated his shoulder.

“Hurts,” Jun admits, wincing a little, “so I really don’t feel like moving anytime soon.”

The ground is hard and unyielding under them but like Jun, Nino doesn’t feel like going anywhere too. He feels like remaining here and watching the sky as the choppers begin arriving and flying alongside the flock of birds, so that’s what he does.

He reaches for Jun without looking, and Jun holds on to his hand tightly as they keep looking at the blue sky. There are no more skyscrapers which block the view and even the clouds are absent. There’s nothing but blanket of blue over debris and ruin, and Nino views it like a new, clean canvas, ready to be painted on.

He hears a shuffle of movement from Jun’s side and when he turns, he sees Jun raising the orange string bracelet with his other hand. “I’m returning it,” Jun says, trying to hand him the bracelet but Nino shakes his head, a grin on his face.

“Keep it.”

“Why? We made it.”

He laughs a little as he squeezes Jun’s hand to prove his point. “It works, apparently. We made it. So I want you to hold on to it a little longer for me.”

Jun shrugs and tucks the bracelet somewhere in his suit without another word, and Nino finally feels the tendrils of fatigue climbing his limbs. He can totally use more than an eight-hour rest upon their return to the Shatterdome, which is, unfortunately, not anytime soon because the evacuation procedures are focusing on the other rangers first.

But since Jun has him covered, he figures he’ll be all right.

“You think they’ll come back?” Jun suddenly asks, and Nino doesn’t need the drift to know that Jun’s remembering the falling meteors containing gigantic monsters, pulverizing cities and devastating countries in a matter of days.

He thinks about it for a moment. “Who knows? You want a postcard or something?”

Jun laughs a little. “You think they’ll send me one from up there?”

“Probably. I’m not looking forward to it, though.”

A fighter plane flies overhead, acting as a guard to the choppers and Nino follows them with his eyes until they disappear in the horizon. He suddenly remembers something. “Think we can hijack a plane to go to Paris?” he asks with a grin and Jun laughs loudly. “You did say something about the Louvre. You think Mona Lisa’s still in there?”

Nino’s not a fan of traveling and would rather stay indoors if he could, but he badly needs a vacation after the hell he just went through. He figures traveling the world (or what remains of it) with Jun won’t be such an awful idea. He might even enjoy it, as long as Jun doesn’t demand that they go outside every chance they get.

But knowing Jun, he’d probably demand exactly that. And Nino kind of hates himself for knowing he won’t exactly put up a lot of fight.

It’s Jun, anyway. He fought a bunch of damn kaijus with Jun and for Jun, and at this point Nino thinks there’s hardly anything he won’t do for the guy. It’s sentimental and probably sappy if he says it out loud, but the world almost ended today and he’s practically living in the post-apocalyptic period in Earth’s history, so for him today’s a good enough day to be a little clingy and disgusting.

He doesn’t say anything though. Jun will rub it in his face if he says a word so he doesn’t, but mostly because he doesn’t think he has to say anything. Jun knows. Jun has seen it in his head and has seen him act on it, and that’s more than enough. Besides, Nino thinks he still has his pride, and he doesn’t find the idea of living in the aftermath of the Kaiju War with Jun gloating by his side inviting.

“We’ve got to go to Katsushika first,” Jun tells him, and he frowns. “It’s not too far from here. Just a bit of walking. Or crawling because we can’t move, but before we go and see the Louvre to find Mona Lisa, we’re going there first.”

“What, you forgot something there?” he asks, and he feels Jun squeezing his hand as Jun smiles.

“You were right about asking me to remind you.”

Ah. That. Nino smiles back, finally remembering. He was definitely right to leave it up to Jun. Trust Jun to remember the important things and to remind him of it. He still owes his sister a lot, and he believes Katsushika will serve as a good start.

He grunts, trying to make himself more comfortable as they lay on the asphalt. “You think she’d mind if we postpone a little? Can’t move anything aside from my neck.” The adrenaline is mostly gone from their bodies, and Nino thinks he’s going to have a peaceful night in the Shatterdome once he’s back. Sho will nag about him and Jun not leaving the infirmary of course, but Nino finds that he’s actually looking forward to Sho forbidding any form of movement despite him not really being part of medical staff.

“No, I think she wouldn’t,” Jun assures him, entwining their fingers together. “There’s always tomorrow.”

Nino doesn’t feel like forcing himself to go anywhere and feels like staring at the now clear sky of Tokyo despite being surrounded by rubble and kaiju remains some kilometers away so he simply looks up, comforted by the presence of Jun beside him. Jun’s always on his right. He grins wider as he keeps looking up, holding on to Jun tightly, his hand as warm and as welcoming as ever, like finding a place to come home to.

For once, Nino feels like he belongs somewhere.

But first, Katsushika and the promise he intends to keep. Then probably Paris or whatever’s left of it. He thinks they can visit Hawaii too. He does remember seeing in the drift that Jun once wanted to be a professional surfer, just before he wanted to become a professional baseball player. That’s a forgotten dream Nino shares with him. Maybe they can catch a baseball game somewhere in the world, if there are colosseums left and there are still teams available for playoffs. He’s not really sure. He doesn’t know a lot of things, but he knows enough.

They’ve lost countries, entire cities. People, soldiers, volunteers, friends, families. They’re all damaged, but that doesn’t mean they’re beaten. Damaged people are the strongest because they know they can survive. But this isn’t Nino surviving. This is him living in a future he once thought was lost, in a tomorrow he fought hard for alongside a person he trusts with everything he has.

He and Jun may be damaged in their own ways. After all, he still has his fears, his ghosts, his demons which won’t fall silent. But they’re both coping, mending. It will take time; rebuilding is harder than destruction. It might take years before they see Tokyo back to the Tokyo they once knew. Maybe it’ll never be the same despite the efforts of reconstruction. But whatever happens, they will get up and there’s no rush. Time will continue moving and with it they will continue trudging forward despite their doubts and uncertainties, despite the broken dreams and long-lost hopes. They will stand and fight and keep moving, because that’s what they do. Doom may arrive in another form aside from an alien race threatening to colonize the planet, but whatever comes, they will face it with determination and courage, for the sake of everything they lost and stood up for and believed in.

There’s always their hard-earned tomorrow, and the future is waiting.

As long as Nino’s got Jun somewhere by his side, he knows he’s not alone.


End file.
